LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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(THIRD EDITION.) 



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M1SS<90RI. 



STATISTICS AND INFORMATION 



—® CONCERNING THE 



STATE OF JMSSOURI 



' Cheap Farming Lands, 



The Grazing and Dairy Region^ 
The Mineral and Timber Resources, 
The Unsurpassed Fruit Lands, 



Limitless Opportunities 

for Labor and Capital.^ 

WITH COMPLIMENTS OF THE 

©enerG^l l^a^^en^ep "©epartntent 

-OF"- 

The Missouri Pacific Railway Go. 



Dedi ©ajiop 



-•->^<^ 



r 



JW^O tl^ose who desire to make a good, cheap h[ome, ^ 

for therr]selves aqd families, surrouqded by all tl^e 
advantages and conqforts of sclqools, churches> railroads, 
social ar]d otlqer privileges of aq old and wefl-established 
conqmuqity, wlqere good laqds can be obtained far below 
their actual value, this sunqmary of the resources of Missouri 
is dedicated. 



Entered according to act of Congress in the year 1889, by 

H. C. TowNSEND, General Passenger and Ticket Agent Missouri Pacific Railway, 

In the office of the Librarian of Congress, Washington, D. C. 



PRESS OF 

Woodward & Tiernan Printing Co., 

ST. LOUIS. 



4iMISS0URI.i^ 



-»-^^^^ 




LOCATION 



ISSOTJEI, on account of its central location, is destined for a 
commanding j)Osition in the sisterhood of States. The geographi- 
cal position of a State or country has as great a bearing on the 
importance of that State or country financially, politically and socially as 
all other influences combined. Why is New York the Empire State? 
Why is its influence felt so strongly in all matters of national impor- 
tance? AVhy do the sister States look to New York to lead? Wh}' are 
the political and financial j^oli^ies of the country dictated from New 
York ? While the United States was confined to the region east of the 
Alleghany mountains, and the commerce of the country west was of no 
importance, Virginia, on account of its central location, exerted the con- 
trolling influence in the affairs of the nation. Her soil was superior to 
that of New York, her climate was more genial, and her natural adapta- 
tion to acquiring wealth in all branches of industry surpassed that of 
New York. Her statesmen and great men were made greater because 
they were citizens of A^irginia, and their influence was augmented by the 
proud position of the great State which they represented. But how great 
the change. Virginia has lost nothing. In fact, her gain in spite of a 
disastrous war, has been steady. But how is it with New York ? AVhen 
the Star of Empire was pushed over the barriers of the Alleghany moun- 
tains, and the army of emigration took possession of the rich farminer 
lands in the INIississippi valley, the streams of commerce and humanity 
commenced to flow east and west, instead of north and south- New 
York harbor was the central point toward which these streams con- 
verged, and New York, on account of her commanding position by the 



4 isrissounr. 

sea, held the world for tribute, ^'oing and coming, and grew in wealth and 
power as the nation extended westward. Tims it is seen that New 
York held its position, not hy virtue of its natural fertility or mineral 
wealth, but because of its location relative to the other States. 

New York will doubtless always maintain her supremacy, but there 
are influences at work that will l)uild up a rival in the "West. In a coun- 
try so large as ours there must necessarily be interests which are more or 
less antagonistic while in no way interfering with the stability of 
government. The West being an agricultural region, exclusively, finds 
itself out of harmony both in the matter of finance and political economy 
with the East, which is largely manufacturing. The center of popula- 
tion, wealth and power lias been steadily moving westward since the 
beginning of the century, and the tendency has been to seek a perma- 
nent lodgment in the IMississippi valley. Every advance westward and 
the admission of every new State has lessened the influence of New 
York and the East on the aflairs of the West and has forced it to a 
greater reliance on its own resources and the principles that should 
govern their development. Then, too, the North and the South have not 
wholly recovered from the antagonisms of the war. . But the South is 
developing its natural resources at a wonderful pace. The Southwest has 
increased its population 60 per cent in the past eight j'ears, and over 
5,000,000 of peoj^le have been added to the pofjulation of the whole South 
since the census of 1S80, and the increase in Avealth both in manufactures 
and agriculture has been even more rapid and phenomenal. The inter- 
ests of the South and West are identical and the reconciliation of the 
whole countr}' lies in the harmonious working together of those two sec- 
tions, for their common good. Therefore nothing is plainer than that 
the West must have a common center where its own commercial, 
political and social interests will crystalize ; but there must also be a 
common ground on which to meet the South and East. There is no 
State that has so even an adjustment of forces as IMissouri. Here are 
found in about equal proportions representatives from the North and 
South, the East and AVest. ,The methods, ideas and sentiments of all 
sections here work harmoniously together. They understand and 
respect each others principles. 

St. Louis is ]-apidly becoming the commercial center of the Mississippi 
valley. It overshadows the Avhole Southwestern trade, and gives its pro- 
tecting influence to every line of production and trathc. In St. Louis 



MISSOURI. 5 

then questions eoncernino. the welfare of the whole country can be 
equitably and impartially adjudicated and it will exert an influence, 
independent of its commercial greatness, that will be felt in the remotest 

*2> 




MISSISSIPPI RIVER BELOW ST, LOUIS. IRON MOUNTAIN ROUTE. 

corner of the United States. Missouri will change from a State of local 
to a State of national importance, and the citizen, the merchant, the pro- 
fessional man, and the congressman, will have added to his own abilities 
and influence, the weight of his citizenship of the great State of Missouri 



6 MISSOURI. 

As is well known, the State of Missouri is situated geographically 
almost in the exact center of the United States, and is also the central 
State of the Mississippi valley, and is about equi-distant from tlie Atlan- 
tic and Pacific oceans, east and west and Canada and the Gulf of Mex- 
ico, north and south. Its area is 69,415 square miles or 44,425,(300 acres, 
the greater portion of which is tillable. Its physical features are varied 
unique and wonderful. But after all, the most striking feature of this 
great State, is the decided abandonment with which Nature has lavished 
her choicest gifts. No region in the world has received equal recogni- 
tion at her hands. On mountain and in vale, on hill and plain, there 
flourishes in superabundance, every article that can be absorbed by man 
in the progress of civilization. Emerald pasture lands, where thousands 
of cattle graze and get themselves in a sacrificial condition to supply the 
hordes of humanity sweeping westward with food, where mobile flocks 
supply the golden fleece for man's apparel, where staple grains that feed 
the world spring from the prolific soil at the waving of labor's wand. 

Sturdy mountains hold within their metal sides rich deposits of iron, 
lead, and numerous other minerals that meet the wants of civilization 
and add to the wealth of the State. The hillsides teem with vineyards, 
and grapes as luscious as were ever ripened by the ^iun of Burgundy or 
Rhineland are compressed into sparkling wine. And where does earth 
reveal a region with a more abundant variety of vegetation and more 
prolific of its fruits and flowers. Vast forests, the growth of centuries, 
deepen the shadows of the landscape and v/hose depths furnish the tim- 
ber that is fashioned by the skillful hand of the artisan into a thousand 
shapes and forms of usefulness and beauty. Throughout the State are 
inexhaustible deposits of lead, zinc, tin, iron, kaolin and granite. A 
combination of fertile prairie and waving forest, green pasture and limpid 
stream, make a delightsome landscape to be seen in its j^erfection 
nowhere else. 

And this is the country we would tell you of. This is the country, as 
it shall be shown, where Nature has been more lavish in the bestowal of 
elements of wealth and happiness, prosperity and great and inexhausti- 
ble wealth than anywhere else in the world. Missouri is a State that 
luckily has escaped the blighting influence of the boomer. While she 
has been fortunate in this respect, she has perhaps been retarded in 
development by tlie too conservative spirit heretofore displayed by her 
citizens and by a lack of judicious and legitimate advertising. The peo- 



MLSSOUKI. 7 

pie of Missouri now see the necessity of making the resources and ad- 
vantages of the State known to the world, or get left far in the rear in the 
rush of civilization and the development of the Southwest. The 
country to the w^est and southwest has been so much more clamorously 
advertised than Missouri, that the latter State has been in a measure over- 
shadowed, and it is not known that in its borders are rich farming, 
grazing and fruit lands, which can be purchased at not much greater cost 
than the unimproved lands of the far West ; and unlike them, they have 
the advantages of schools, society, railroads, markets and many other 
similar benefits Avhich are denied to the first generation on the virgin 
soil. 

It has long been a matter commented upon by persons familiar with 
Western emigration, that home-seekers pass through the State of Missouri 
and on to the extreme frontiers of Kansas and Nebraska — paying for 
land in sparsely inhabited neighborhoods' prices, in some instances, 
greater than those charged for better lands over which they have passed 
to reach the wilderness. There can be found within the State of Mis- 
souri farming lands as fine as the sun ever shone on, which are held 
at prices as low as prevail two and three hundred miles farther w^est. 
And yet of the immense stream of immigration that annually pours west- 
ward, but a very small proportion halts until it reaches the very borders 
of civilization. This is caused by the fact that persons who leave the 
populous East to seek homes and cheap lands in the West, set out on their 
journey under the impression that in the thickly sett/ed portions of the 
Western States prices are very much higher than on the frontiers. The 
result is, that without any investigation whatever, they go on and on 
until they reach the end of the railroads, or at least the remotest settle- 
ments, and arriving there by the thousands, find the competition of pur- 
chasers far greater than prevails in a portion of the country through 
which they have journeyed. Hence they pay larger prices for land re- 
mote from the markets, in neighborhoods enjoying none of the benefits 
pertaining to a thickly populated region, and are compelled to labor for 
years at a disadvantage they could have avoided by settling in the older 
portions of the States through which they have passed. 

The mistake of Eastern people who come West to buy farming lands is 
that they leave home in charge of a land agent, and never look to the 
right or left until they find themselves near the foot-hills of the Rocky 
mountains. Here they invest in " wild prairie " that never has been, and 



8 MISSOURI. 

probably never will be reliably productive. Meanwhile they pass through 
the most fertile agricultural region on the continent, Avhere land is offered 
at very low rates, and on reasonable terms, where failures of crops is almost 
unknown, M'here markets are convenient and agriculture profitable. If 
you are about to remove to the West, beware of excursions into the 
wilderness, 

IMissouri comprises a portion of the garden s])ot of the West. There 
cannot be found on the continent an area of country equaling it in fertil- 
ity and natural resources, nor one more happily situated with reference 
to the great markets of the country. The actual value of land ought to 
bear a relation to the convenience of its locality to markets as Avell as 
to its qualities in other respects. Therefore land within reach by rail or 
otherwise of the IMissouri river points should be far more valuable than 
lands more distant, for ^lissouri river points are and will be for all time 
to come, the markets in which the products of a large portion of the 
State must be sold. It will pay persons seeking AVestern homes to tarry 
a while in Missouri before buying land. Having done so, they cannot 
fail to come to the conclusion, that there may be such a thing as going a 
little too far west just for the sake of getting a chance to grow up with the 
country. In this portion of the great West, enterprise has taken a strong, 
fresh, new hold, and the New South and the New West are growing 
together. The vast resources are bringing hither every branch of manu- 
facture, and the time is not far distant wdien along the banks of the "Big 
Muddy" the great manufacturing centers of the world will exist. Only a 
little while ago this region imported its canned vegetables from the 
Atlantic coast and its canned fruit from the Pacific. To-day, because of 
the fact that on one acre of Missouri bottomland more of such vegetables 
can be raised than on double that amount of Eastern land, and because 
our orchards can be made as prolific as those of California, the trade of 
both the East and West in both classes of goods mentioned, has rapidly 
fallen off", and the Missouri valley has become self-supporting in that 
particular. Moreover the land which is so much better is far more plen- 
tiful and very much cheaper, and in a little while the Missouri valley, 
already an exporter, will be furnishing the world with canned fruit and 
vegetables. 

In thousands of other directions among the comforts, necessaries and 
luxuries of life, the IMissouri valley region will become the supply depot. 
Our fields of grain, flocks and herds of shee]), cattle and swine, mines of 



MISSOURI. 



iron, lead and zinc, quarries of stone, beds of sand and Inmdreds of inex- 
haustible resources have already brought hither planing and flouring 
mills, furniture factories, starch factories, breweries and distilleries, meat 
packeries, weaving establishments, foundries and many other like enter- 
prises, and they will be doubled and redoubled many and many times, 
and to them will be added hundreds of other lines of art and manufacture, 
gathering material for their product on the ground. 

The teeming East should and will learn of this, and that there is room 
and employment for countless thousands in this vast region, openings for 
investment where energy and enterprise will prove the talismanic keys 
to fortune. To this fair and fertile section a hospitable people invite the 
industrious from everywhere. 

The bona fide homeseeker, the capitalist and investor are wanted in 
Missouri and to them the State will be a revelation. You will not find 
here an El Dorado, dollars cannot be found as thick as autumn leaves in 
Valambrosia, nor can wealth and happiness be acquired without the 
sweat of honest toil. But you will find a land where industry receives 
its sure and rich reward, and judicious investments will bring an abund- 
ant increase. Your life and property will not be hazarded by the 
blizzards that sweep the North, nor your grains and grasses be shriveled 
by the hot winds of the sun-parched deserts of the distant West. You 
can at moderate cost locate yourself on some of as fine land as the sun 
ever shone on right along the great highways of commerce between the 
East and West, where the arteries of trafiic are throbbing with ever 
increasing activity. Here is a country right in the midst of civilization 
where a small investment aided by intelligent labor will bring its sure 
reward of wealth, where churches and schools, culture and enlightenment, 
hold undisputed sway over a peaceful people. 



10 MISSOURI. 



PHYSICAL FEATURES AND SOIL. 



1 ISSOIJRI is situated in the geographical center of the RepubUc, in 
f^m^ the Mississippi Valley, having that river sweeping its eastern 
boundary, with the Missouri separating it nearly in the center, 
flowing east and west, and from Kansas City northward, forming its west- 
ern boundary. Nature's means of transportation are abundantly pro- 
vided. The waters of these two rivers afford a cheap and convenient 
means of carrying on commerce between the principal cities of the 
State and of bordering States, and also an outlet for the products of the 
western part of the State to the East, and brings it in water connection 
with Memphis, New Orleans and the gulf and ocean. Thus, without rail- 
roads Missouri would be by no means helpless and cut off from the com- 
merce of the outer world. Upper Missouri may all be included in the 
Mississippi, Missouri and Grand river valleys, and is nearly all prairie, 
the timber being confined to the narrow stretches that skirt the streams 
principally. The prairie land is, for the most part, high and rolling, 
except the river bottoms in the immediate vicinity of the rivers, and the 
soil of the whole of northern Missouri is deep, rich and easily cultivated. 
Even indifferent cultivation brings abundant harvests. South of the 
Missouri river, except in the extreme west, is the timbered and broken 
part of the State. The southwest section referred to is similar to north 
Missouri and contains, at present, nearly all the desirable farming land 
of the State, that may be had at low rates and to which it is especially 
desired to invite the attention of those looking for good, cheap homes. 
The remainder of the country south of the river, while not so well 
adapted, as a whole, to general farming, contains the mineral and timber 
wealth of the State, and, in addition, some excellent farming lands in the 
river bottoms, and it nearly all affords grazing that can be surpassed 
nowhere. This comprises the Ozark region of the State and is, conse- 
quently, more broken than the northern part; and, to the southwest of 
St. Louis, toward the southern boundary of the State, the hills attain the 
height and dignity of mountains, many rearing their abrupt granite peaks 
among the clouds. 

The scenery here is all picturesque, some of it attaining the grand and 
sublime. While not possessing so rich a soil as the northern part of the 



MISSOURI. 



11 



State, Nature has bestowed her wealth in a different form. Here are 
found the rich iron, lead, zinc and kaolin mines of the State. And here 
is dug the coal that supplies the Western world with fuel. It is idle to 
speculate upon the extent of the mineral deposits beneath the surface of 
the State of Missouri. It is a question that many ages in the future will 
not be able to 
solve, no mat- 
ter how vast 
exploration 
and removal 
maydrawupon 
its stores. The 
Iron mountain 
is the largest 
exposure and 
the purest mass 
of iron known 
on the earth. 
Missouri, with- 
out doubt, now 
produces more 
lead than all 
the States com- 
bined, and zinc 
is quite as 
abundant. 

The other 
navigable riv- 
ers of the State 
are the Osage, 
Gasconade,La- 
mine and White. Small ii\ 
ers, creeks and branches are distributed 
over the whole extent of the State, furnishing an abundance of water, an 
effectual drainage, and mill sites to any extent of demand for many years 
to come. Springs of purest water exist in abundance throughout south- 
ern Missouri, and there are a great variety of mineral waters. Some of 
these springs are noted for the abundance of water which they pour forth. 




12 MISSOURI. 

The soils are of great variety, as is shown by the State Geologist's 
report, and are adapted to the production of all kinds of grains, fruits and 
vegetables in their greatest perfection, known to the temperate zone. 
Timber varies Avith the soil and embraces a very wide range of the 
choicest varieties of both hard and soft w^oods. Among the most valuable 
timber found are the sweet, black and yellow gum, the pine, beech and 
tulip tree. The hard wood varieties are oak, walnut and hickory, elm, 
maple, ash and locust, cherry, cottonwood, pecan, box elder and chestnut. 

The geological sub-stratum is, to a great extent, carboniferous — vast 
areas of coal hidden beneath the surface, sufficient to furnish fuel that 
might warm the continent for untold ages, and plainly designating 
Missouri for the great manufacturing State of the Union in the years to 
come. 

Turning now to the soils of Missouri, we find every variety, both 
})rairie and timber, and of every conceivable depth above the geological 
formation. These soils are indicated, in a state of nature, as well by the 
growth of grasses upon the surface of the prairie as the growth of trees in 
the timbered regions indicates the quality of the soil which nourishes 
their roots. One of the finest bodies of prairie land in the w^orld can be 
found in the chain of counties extending along the INIissouri river from 
Callaway all the way to Atchison. The drainage of this country in the 
main is excellent. The soil is rich, quick and productive. The praries 
yield abundantly of corn and the smaller grains, and constitute the fin- 
est meadow lands in the world. The alluvial soils of the rivers are com- 
posed chiefly of sand, lime and vegetable mould, and their wonderful 
fertility is generally considered indestructible. These alluvial soils are 
generally devoted to the cultivation of corn, hemp, tobacco, Irish pota- 
toes and hay. Wheat upon the virgin soil grows too luxuriantly and is 
liable to tumble or lodge, and no attempts should be made to grow the 
latter grain until several years of other crops. 

Another soil of great productiveness is found in the northwest counties 
and a part of the south w^est counties of the State. It is usually of gently 
rolling prairie and is underlaid by the upper and middle coal measures. 
The agricultural products are corn^ wheat, hay, oats, barley, i^otatoes, and 
in fact almost any products of the State. As a consequence, cattle, hogs, 
mules, horses and sheep flourish here. This soil is black from the 
presence of lime in quantity, and if the lime-stone contains iron the soil 
is red or brown, but its productiveness is not thereby lost. Another dis- 



MISSOURI. 



13 



tiuot class of soils is found South of this region, and on a belt extending 
from the Arkansas line to the Missouri river. This class has a reddish 
clay soil, is a fine corn and wheat country and admirably adapted to 
fruit and sheep culture. This soil is based on magnesian lime-stone and 
abounr'3 in fine springs and very heavy timber. 

The last class of soils is that on 
lands elevated higher than other 
portions of the State, being from 
1,200 to 1,500 feet above sea level. 
It is underlaid by sand-stone and 
magn-^sian lime-stone. Black oak, 
hickory, pine and cedar flourish 
here, and the grape is grown in 
perfection. In its valleys and on 
some of its slopes the lands are 
very fertile, and yet in compensa- 
tion for a less generous soil, Na- 
ture has given to this region a 
deposit in mines of mineral and 




CAMP SCENE 



metal that can stand the drain of the world's wants for hundreds of 
centuries. 

The location of Missouri for all agricultural purposes is the most desir- 
able that could be found. Being in the geographical center of the United 
States, north and south, neither extreme of temperature is ever exper- 
ienced. Howling blizzards and temperatures that run the mercury 
.twenty, thirty and forty degrees below zero are as utter strangers to the 
State of Missouri as the scorching heat and fiery sun of the South. Then, 
too, the seasons of seed time and harvest are long. The farmer has ample 
time to get his ground in condition for the planting. The crop has a 
long season to mature and corn is never in danger of the early frosts of 
autumn. The winters are short and there are very few days that the 
farmer cannot be employed in outdoor pursuits. This is an advantage, 
too, that must not be overlooked in the economy of raising sheep and 
cattle. The winter is short and the profits of the farm are not consumed 
in carrying the stock through till spring. Stock can nearly make-a living 
from the range, and, unless it is desired to fit them for the market, very 
little feeding is required. The range of form produce raised in Missouri 
is exceeded nowhere. There are all the grains and vegetables of the 



14 



MISSOURI. 



North ill the greatest perfection, the great stajDles, wlieat and corn, mak- 
ing the highest average per acre. All kinds of fruits reach their highest 
perfection here. In the raising of apples and pears Missouri is already a 
formidable rival of the East, and when all of her orchards come into full 
bearing, this State can control the AVestern market. The wonderful 
results already reached in this bi'anch of agricultural industry are sur- 
prising when its com- 
parative infancy is 
taken into considera- 
tion. In the raising 
of small fruits, Mis- 
souri has exceptional 
advantages, for, in 
addition to reaching 
their greatest perfec- 
tion here, both in 
quality and quantity, 
the early seasons 
enable the producers 
to put them on the 
markets of the coun- 
try in advance of the 
glut which annually 
occurs, thereby se- 
curing the highest 
prices. They are also 
in position to supply 
the late and exhaust- 
ed markets of the 
South. 

When all these ad- 
vantages are taken 
into consideration, and, in addition, the comparative cheapness of rich, 
improved lands in desirable communities, with every advantage of 
society, schools and churches, no candid and fair-minded joerson will 
deny the superiority of the claims of Missouri on the consideration of the 
intelligent farmer Avho is seeking a home in tlie great West. 




CATHEDRAL SPIRES ON THE MERAMBG. 
MISSOURI PACIFIC RAILWAY. 



LINE OF 



MISSOURI. 15 

Another division might, be made into prairie lands and timber lands 
Each division contains soils of all grades of productiveness. 

Bisecting the State by a line drawn from the city of Hannibal, on the 
Mississippi river, to its southwest corner, the half lying to the north and 
west of this line may be described as the prairie region of the State. 
That which lies east and south of the bisecting line is the timbered or 
forest section, in which are found numerous prairies of greater or less 
extent. The prairie lands are again divided into bottoms and uplands. 
The bottom prairies closely resemble in soil the river bottoms. In a cer- 
tain sense the formation is identical; each came from accretions — one 
from the rivers, and the other from the higher or upland prairies. The 
marl formation is the foundation of both, and in both it is deeply buried 
under the modern alluvium. They owe their extraordinary fertility and 
inexhaustible productiveness to a borrowed wealth, which came to them 
in endless supply from the loosened soils of the higher lands by means 
of overflow and abundant rains. The river bottoms are generally 
bounded by timber or bluff lands ; occasionally they extend, by gentle 
swells, into prairie bottoms, which occupy a higher level, and are often 
grand and sublime in their vast extent. Undulating or rolling like 
waves in their endless succession, the upland prairies often appear as 
limitless as the sea, and present the appearance of the ocean when sub- 
siding from the effects of a storm. Also they are the sources of enormous 
wealth, and are objects of never-failing interest and attraction to the 
•agriculturist, who well knows with what ease they are cultivated, and 
how gratefully they reward his labor. The bottoms of the rivers and 
streams are distributed oVer every portion of the State, and are similar in 
formation and soil to those of the great rivers. In this book it is not 
necessary to give minutely the classification of the soils of Missouri. A 
general survey of the field is all that the farmer will require. 

The hackberry lands are first in fertility and productiveness. On these 
lands also grow elm, honey locust, hickory, white, black, burr and 
chestnut oaks, black and white walnut, linden, ash, poplar, catalpa and 
maple. The prairie soils of about the same quality are known as crow- 
foot lands, so-called, from a species of weed found upon them, and these 
two soils generally join each otherwhere the timber and prairie soils 
meet. • Both rest upon a bed of firm silieious marls, and even under 
most exhaustive tillage will prove perpetually fertile. On this soil white 
oaks have been found twentv-nine feet in circumference and one hun- 



Ifi MISSOURI. 

dred feet high, linden twenty-three feet in circnjnference and qnite as 
lofty. The burr oak and sycamore grow still larger. Prairie gi-asses, on 
the crow-foot lands, grow very rank and tall, and by the old settlers were 
said to entirely conceal herds of cattle from view. 

The elm lands are scarcely inferior to the hackberry lands and possess 
nearly the same growth of timber. The soil has about the same proper- 
ties, except that the sand is finer and the clay more abundant. The 
same quality of soil appears in the prairie known as the resin-weed 
lands. 

Next in order are hickory lands, with a growth of white and shellbark 
hickory, black laurel and scarlet oak, sugar maple and persimmon. In 
some portions of the State the tulip tree, beech and black gum grow on 
lands of the same quality. Large bodies of prairie in the northeast 
and southwest have soils of the same quality called mullatto soils. 
These hickory lands, and those mentioned as similar to them are highly 
esteemed by farmers for the culture of corn, wheat and other cereals. 
They are also admirably adapted to the cultivation of fruits and their 
blue grass pastures are the equal of any in the State. 

The magnesian limestone soils extend froin Callaway county south to 
the Arkansas line and from Jefferson west to Polk county, which can be 
traced on the county and sectional map in the back of this pamphlet. 
These soils are dark, warm, light and very productive. They produce 
black and white walnut, black gum and elms, sugar maples, chestnut, 
black post, laurel, scarlet and Spanish oak. They are among the most 
productive soils of the State and yield fine crops of all the staples. 
Thrifty fruit trees and vines evince their adaptation and fitness for the 
production of all kinds of fruits in an extraordinary degree. Large, bold 
springs, of limpid, pure and cool water, gush from every hillside and 
flow away in bright streams, giving beauty and attraction to the magnifi- 
cent forests of elm, oak, mulberry and buckeye which often adorn their 
borders. The mining regions embraced in this division of the soils, are 
thus supplied with vast agricultural wealth and a large mining, pastoral 
and agricultural population may here be brought together in relations 
scarcely to be found in any other country of the world. Bluegrass and 
other succulent and nutritious grasses grow luxuriantly, even on the 
ridges and hillsides of the upland forests, in almost everj^ portion of 
southern Missouri. Located in the midst of a temperate and charming 
climate, with its fountains and streams, its valleys and elevated lands will 



MISSOURI. 17 

attract and delight sooner or later vast populations. On the ridges where 
the lighter materials of the soils have been washed away or were origi- 
nally wanting, white oak lands are to be found, the oaks accompanied by 
shellbark and black hickory, and trees and shrubs of smaller growth; 
while the surface soil is not so rich as the hickory lands, the subsoil is 
quite as good, and the land may be greatly improved by turning the sub- 
soil to the surface. These produce superior wheat, good corn, and a very 
fine quality of tobacco. On these lands fruits are abundant and a sure 
crop. 

Pine lands are extensive and embrace a large area of the southern por- 
tion of the State. The yellow pine, which constitutes largely the growth 
of this district, grows to a great size and furnishes immense supplies 
of marketable lumber. They are accompanied by heavy growths of oak 
which take the country as successors to the pine. The soil is sandy and 
well adapted to small grains and grasses. 

The tillable soil of Missouri especially adapted to cultivation and to 
the most varied agriculture is of great variety and excellence. Its rare 
ingredients are rarely found in the same combination elsewhere. In the 
most hilly and broken portions of the State are rich valleys ; those unfit 
for cultivation are covered with valuable timber. About 2,000,000 acres 
of government lands remain still undisposed of, and while the best of 
these lands have been culled, small and very valuable tracts may be 
entered under the homestead and pre-emption laws. The railroad com- 
panies still own large quantities of land. 

In every county in the State farms and improved lands can be pur- 
chased at very low ]>rices. 



CLIMATE AND HEALTH 



^'VERY other advantage Deing equal, the climate will turn the scale for 
or against a country and determine the land seeker in his choice of a 
home. It is intimately connected with the well-being of its inhabitants, 
and is indeed the most essential element of this well-being which nature 
can grant them. So that then the consideration of the climatic condi- 



18 



MISSOURI. 



tions becomes of the first importance in the selection of a conntry ^vhich 
is to become the permanent home of our families. Missouri lies almost 
in the center of the North American continent, It is therefore essen- 
tially an inland State, with all the advantages and disadvantages of such 
an inland, or as it is termed scientifically, a continental climate. Two 




rivers, the largest 
on the continent, 
the Mississippi on 
the eastern bor- 
der, and the IMis- 
souri through the 
center of the 

State, and their numerous afiSuents, favorably modify the climatic condi- 
tions. Its elevation above the ocean varies from 300 to 400 feet in the 
southeastern portion of the State to 1,200 and 1,600 in the southwest. 

The State is situated just on tlie limits of the wooded x-)ortion of the 
Mississippi valley and of the western prairie country, and partakes of 



ON BIG RIVER A Reminisoenob of thb Past. 



MISSOURI. 19 

both conditions. The watershed of the Ozark mountains passinj^ through 
the southern portion of the State, from northeast to southwest, attain a 
maximum elevation above the surrounding country of 800 feet, but are 
not high enough to exert a perceptible influence on the climate. 

The mean annual temperature is about 55 degrees. The mean winter 
temperature is 33 degrees and of summer 76 degrees. While in wdnter 
the temperature sometimes gets below zero, and in summer up among 
the highest figures at the top of the thermometer, these extremes are of 
but short duration, not lasting long enough to occasion any inconvenience 
or discomfort in either direction. The winter as a whole is moderate and 
mild, with very little snow, and no long storm-locked periods when it is 
with diflSculty that the farmer can keep up communication with dwelling 
and stables, and much less with the outside w^orld. On the contrary, 
cattle require very little stabling and only a moderate amount of feeding 
in comparison with the amount of care necessary on a Northern farm. 
The summers are no hotter than in the more northern States, The 
heated periods are of longer duration, perhaps, but are the source of very 
little inconvenience, and no loss to the farmer, like the long winters of 
the North. 

Another element of a desirable climate for agricultural purposes, to be 
taken into consideration, is the amount of rainfall and its distribution 
throughout the different seasons. The average annual rainfall for the 
State is about 41 inches. It is the least in winter and highest in sum- 
mer. This is a high average, but insures the absence of extensive 
droughts, which bring such widespread injury in some parts of the 
country. And notwithstanding this large amount of rainfall, the climate 
is a dry one, for the most abundant rains fall in a very short space of 
time, and clear skies is the rule, and cloudy, overcast heavens the excep- 
tion, especially in the summer and autumn. The universal reign of sun- 
shine is a condition of the climate w^hich is of the greatest importance 
for the well-being of the inhabitants. In summer and autumn there is 
rarely a day without some sunshine, and in the other seasons rarely three 
days pass without some break in the clouds. A continuation of a week's 
gloomy weather is a great rarity, even in the darkest months. All of 
which is conducive in a great measure to the happiness and w^ell-being 
of humanity. The south and southw^est winds are the prevailing ones, 
especially in the warmer seasons, and in the winter west and northwest 
are equally as prevalent. Winds usually prevail at all seasons, rendering 



20 MISSOURI. 

tlie greatest heat of summer tolerable, but rarely reaching the dimensions 
of tornadoes, which are so frequent farther west. 

The natural as well as the cultivated products of the soil attest the 
favorable influences of the climate on organized life. From the largest 
timber down to the smallest and least significant members of the veg- 
etable kingdom the greatest perfection of growth is attained. 

The climate of Missouri is on the whole very favorable to the prosperity 
of the human race, and a great and hapj)y community will enjoy the 
benefits a bounteous nature has so generously lavished u^^on the entire 
State. 

In conclusion, it is especially desirable to call the attention of the 
farmer who is desirous of obtaining a home in the West to the advan- 
tages to the agricultural industry of the mild, short winters which pre- 
vail in the State of Missouri. The advantages of mild, open, short 
winters are not fully appreciated by the farmer in changing from a colder 
to a warmer State. A short, open winter gives him the opportunity of 
working nearly every day in the year, and not hibernating for five or six 
months, as the farmer of the North is compelled to do. It saves hired 
labor, giving him a much longer season for doing his work. It saves him 
great expense in carrying his stock through the long winter, to say noth- 
ing of the great saving in fuel, clothing, health, etc. He can keep his 
farm in better condition and culture, and that with his own labor, than if 
he were restricted to a shorter season. These advantages are more than 
the farmer can estimate, and the amount saved in a year in the milder 
climate would represent a fair j^rofit on a moderate sized farm. The 
money saved is the money made on a farm, as well as elsewhere, and 
farmers who contemplate a change would do well to look into the merits 
of a short winter season in its bearings on farm economy. 

The conditions on which general healthfulness depends, are exceed- 
ingly favorable in INIissouri. The climate, as we have seen above, is the 
most desirable to be found in which to live throughout the entire year. 
The summers are not extremely hot, nor the winters extremely cold, and 
there are consequently none of the dangers to life and health which 
attend the opposite conditions. The atmosphere may be called a dry one, 
notwithstanding there is abundance of rainfall. There is very little 
gloomy, overcast weather when the sun is not seen for days at a time ; 
when rains occur, they fall fast and copiously and are followed by a clear 
sky and bright sunshine, which quickly clears the atmosphere and earth 



MISSOURI. 21 

of lingering moisture, that otherwise remaining would brew the germs 
of sickness and general unhealthfulness. The altitude and rolling 
surface of the State is also favorable to good health. Only a small 
portion of the State can be designated as swampy. The remainder 
is of a character which would be called decidedly broken or rolling. 
In some sections the hills rise to the dignity of mountains, and at no 
point in the State is there a lack of diversity of surface sufficient to 
hold in check any amount of rainfall and prevent the most thorough 
drainage consistent with the best sanitary conditions. 

The home seeker may know, that in making Missouri his home, he 
is not coming in a State where he will endanger that most priceless 
possession of himself and family, their health, but on the contrary 
he may be assured that the chances are vastly in favor of a decided 
improvement, not only pecuniarily, but also in the conditions of 
health. 

We have then to sum up, a soil of the highest grade of natural 
fertility, abundance of rainfall to produce the greatest results in all 
kinds of grains and fruits, a climate unsurpassed, and the other con- 
ditions of health almost i)erfect. Now we are to see how all these 
natural conditions are being utilized. What are the present conditions 
of agriculture and the opportunities offered to the home seeker and the 
future outlook of this industrv in Missouri. 



AGRICULTURE. 



ITS PRESENT AND FUTURE. 



ISSOURI is essenti;ally an agricultural State. The present status of 
this industry, however brilliant of itself, is but a promise of the 
future. While ranking among the foremost States in the production of 
the staj)le cereals as to amount and value, it is comparatively a new 
agricultural State, with a large amount of land that has never been 
brought under cultivation, and a still greater quantity which is only made 
to yield an iota of what it is capable, owing to its cheapness, the large 



22 MISSOURI. 

tracts in which it is held, and the lack of improved methods and 
systematic culture, such as are characteristic of the older and more thickly 
populated East. 

In 1889 the population of Missouri was 2,568,380 of all ages. Of this 
number 792,959 wore engaged in the various occupations, whereby men 
can make au honest living and support those dependent upon them. Of 




GRAND CANYON, SULPHUR SPRINGS. ON THE MBRAMEG MISSOURI PACIFIC R'Y. 

this latter number, 375,297 were engaged in agricultural pursuits, and 
making their living from the soil of the State of Missouri. Nearly half 
were thus engaged as against those of all other occupations. Thus it is 
seen that agriculture outstrips any other industry and indeed prepon- 
derates over them all combined in regard to the number of inhabitants 
engaged in them. 
These 375,297 people produced in 1889, of the leading cereals as 



MISSOURI. 23 

follows: corn, 213,500,000 bushels, or more than the total product of 
the whole United States in 1860, making her third in the yield of corn. 

Wheat, 23,350,000 bushels, and eighth in the yield of this staple. 

Oats, 38,666,000 bushels, standing sixth in this cereal. 

E,ye, 535,426 bushels, again standing eighth. 

The value of the potato crop of the same year was $4,689,694. 

The milk products were valued at $4,173,017. 

The butter yield was worth to the farmers $33,572,124. 

These are a long way from being the entire agricultural products of the 
State. No figures are here given for the stock industry, sheep and wool 
growing ; the large quantities of fruit, including the immense business 
done in grapes and wine growing, and various other smaller products 
which bring millions into the pockets of the farmers annually. 

The above products were raised on 29,177,990 acres of land which has 
an assessed valuation of $395,633,307. These figures show conclusively 
that Missouri ranks among the first great agricultural States of the Union. 
It is in the lead in the leading products of the soil. It is the geographical 
center of the Mississippi valley, the geographical center of the United 
States, and of the North American continent. It is in direct communi- 
cation by water with the ocean and the commercial centers of the world. 
It is the center of the commerce of the great Mississippi valley and is 
in direct communication with the Atlantic seaboard by means of all the 
east and west through railway lines. It is central in point of latitude, 
thus avoiding the long cold winters of the North, as well as the dry hot 
summers of the South. It afibrds a great diversity of pursuits to the til- 
ler of the soil — greater than almost any other State. All the cereals are 
grown in the greatest perfection and yield the greatest returns. All the 
fruits, grains and vegetables of the North as well as those indigenous to 
the South attain the greatest perfection in Missouri. The wheat grown 
in Missouri makes the best flour and is eagerly sought in European 
markets. If properly sown in fair soil the yield ought to be in an aver- 
age year, thirty bushels per acre, an<l indeed many farmers often obtain 
that yield on their entire crop. The Eastern farmer with his improved 
methods could even increase this large yield. Corn nowhere attains 
greater perfection than here, and the soil and climate are perfectly 
adapted to growing all kinds of fruits. Large areas of the finest pasture 
lands are found indifferent parts of the State, and stock, sheep and wool 
growing are by no means the least of her industries. 



24 MISSOURI. 

The preceding may serve to give a brief idea of the agricultural inter- 
est of the State of Missouri. But these are figures of a State only par- 
tially developed, and are just a suggestion of what may be accomplished 
when all her agricultural resources have been developed and made to 
approximate their greatest perfection under prevailing conditions. 

There are vast agricultural opportunities still undeveloped in Missouri. 
There is still a large opening for the farmer who is intelligent, indus- 
trious and economical. 

The State of Missouri contains 42,625,600 acres all told. Of this there 
are still unimproved 14,480,610 acres. This is of course not all adapted 
to agricultural purposes, much of it being mountainous and broken to such 
an extent as to make it available, at its best, only for grazing purposes. 
Some of it is covered with a dense growth of valuable timber. But a 
large quantity of this area is excellent farming land and as productive as 
any in the State. In addition to this there is considerable land in south- 
east Missouri still owned by the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern 
Railway which is of excellent quality for general farming, and may be 
purchased at low rates for cash, or may be obtained on time payments 
on easy terms and long extension of time. 

But the greatest inducements to home seekers lie not so much in the 
unimproved lands of the State, as in the low prices of the semi-cultivated 
and improved lands to be found in all parts of the State and in some of 
the most favorable localities. There is no State having such excellent 
soils, superior railroad facilities, close proximity to markets and with all 
the advantages of schools and social privileges where farms are so cheap 
as in INIissouri. For years the stream of western immigration has passed 
through Missouri to the so-called cheap lands of the West, where they 
paid nearly as much for the bare prairie without a stick of timber or a 
board set up on the end to keep off the howling winds or shelter them 
from the blizzards. They have been contented to live for years in a dug- 
out, when, with no greater cost in the long run, they might have been the 
possessors of improved farms with snug homes, where their families 
might live in comfort, within a short distance of ready markets, with 
good schools for their children and churches where they might M'orship 
with their families and accumulate a compentence for their old age without 
undergoing the discomforts of a home in the wilderness. 

Missouri offers no lands to the settler for pre-emption. The chief 
inducement, as we have said before, is the cheap, improved, rich farming 



MISSOURI. 25 

lands of the State. On account of large holdings and unimproved meth- 
ods of farming, tlie State's capacity for production has by no means 
reached its limit. There is no reason why Missouri should not produce 
double her present harvests of all crops and become the leading agricul- 
tural State of the Union. In size, point of location, fertility of soil, prox- 
imity to consuming centers, transportation facilities, climate, etc., it has 
all the promises of a glorious future. A man with moderate means can 
come here and buy a good farm with all the advantages enumerated for 
no more than it would cost to prove up on a government claim in the 
West and erect suitable buildings for his family and stock. 

To the home seekers of the Eastern States and to the traveler from 
across the seas, Missouri has been a comparatively unknown land and an 
unfamiliar name, while widespread advertisements have made other less 
favored sections, with their attractions, real and assumed, household 
words in immigration centers. For years these facts have been com- 
mented upon and the apathy of Missourians relative to immigration criti- 
cized. But this is a thing of the past, and now through the efforts of a 
number of public spirited men, Missouri is to be advertised as she has 
never been before, and the quickening into new life that is now begin- 
ning to be felt through all the avenues of trade, through the efforts of 
these enterprising gentlemen, is to be pushed to the very flood tide of 
prosperity and activity that will place Missouri in the position she is en- 
titled to by virtue of the advantages with which nature has endowed 
her. 



26 



MISSOURI. 



PRODUCTS 



Ip- LL grains, fruits and vegetables do well in Missouri. A greater num- 
ber of the foregoing products reach perfection within the limits of 
~ this State than any other similar area that the whole world could 

boast. 

WHEAT. 

AVheat culture here cannot be excelled. The land is rolling, well 
drained and dry. The climate is all that could be desired and the crop 
rarely suffers from the effects of the severe winters and deep freezing of 
the more northern latitudes which are frequently so fatal to this cereal. 
The yield is uniform — varying but slightly from year to year — in- 
creasing with the increase of acreage. Missouri ranks among the leading 
wheat States. 

The following table gives the amount of wheat in bushels in eight of 
the leading grain producing States of the West for 1887, and shows that 
Missouri stands well up in the lead in the production of this cereal ; 
21,672,000 



Michigan, 
Indiana, 
Illinois, . 
Wisconsin, 
Minnesota, . 
Iowa,. 

MISSOURI, 
Nebraska, 



37,828,000 
36,861,000 
13,063,000 
36,299,000 
26,837,000 
27,744,000 
16,585,000 



It will be seen from the above that Missouri is fourth among the wheat 
producing States of the Mississippi valley in total quantity of wheat pro- 
duced. The table below shows the average per acre of the same States 
for the year 1887 : 



Michigan, .... 


13 


bushels 


per acre 


Indiana, .... 


13 






Illinois, 


15 






Wisconsin, .... 


10 






Minnesota, .... 


11 






Iowa, 


10 






MISSOURI, . 


16 






Nebraska, .... 


10 







MISSOURI. 



27 



The last table is the best test of the adaptability of a State to wheat 
growing, and in the yield per acre for the whole State, Missouri is clearly 
in the lead with the high average of 16 bushels per acre. The only State 
of the group approaching her is Illinois with 15 bushels per acre. The 
inference must be drawn from this, that Missouri, in fertility of 
soil and adaptability of both soil and climate to wheat growing, 
takes first rank among the States in the production of the great food 
staple. 

The tables following may be useful, and while they show that on 
account of distance from the seaboard, Missouri farmers did not receive 
as much per bushel for their wheat, they more than made up the 
difference in the greater yield per acre and the superior quality of the 
grain : 



Michigan, 

Indiana, 

Illinois, 










$10 per acre 
10 
10 


Wisconsin, 
Minnesota, 










4 

7 


Iowa, 
MISSOURI, 

Nebraska, 










7 " 
lO 

5 



Table show^ing the total value of the wheat crop of the eight leading 
wheat States for the year 1887 : 



Michigan, 

Indiana, 

Illinois, . 

Wisconsin, 

Minnesota, 

Iowa, 

MISSOURI, 

Nebraska, 



$16,037,000 

27,236,000 

25,802,000 

8,360,000 

21,416,000 

16,370,000 

17,201,000 

8,790,000 



The wheat raised in Missouri is of the best milling quality and is much 
sought after both at home and in foreign markets. We think there is not 
much need for further explanation, as the foregoing figures speak for them- 
selves more eloquently than words can. There is a vast quantity of 



28 



MISSOURI. 



splendid wheat land still unturned that can be made as productive as 
that already under cultivation, awaiting the enterprise of the immigrant. 

CORN. 

Indian corn or maize is the leading agricultural staple of this country. 
It has usurped the throne of cotton as king of American ]iroducts. The 



States for 



>f tlifi TTnited 



total corn-yield r 
the year 1887 A\a 
having a market 

This is not th( 
ever known. It 1 
passed frequently, 
to the high price 
in 1887, it is the ^ 
ket value ever pi 
this crop or any < 
any time in the 
history of the 
United States 
Ofthisamount, 
Missouri pn » 
duced 140,080,- 
000 bushels, 
and the farm 
ers of the Stair 
pocketed $52,- 
151,000as their 
share of the 
profits of this 
crop. In nf) 
State is Indian 
corn more at 

home, and it is one of the most profitable crops to the farmer. Its yield 
depends largely upon the soil upon which it is grown and the character 
of the cultivation given to it. On ordinary soil, with careful cultivation, 
it should yield from forty to fifty bushels per acre. As a matter of fact, 
however, the average yield is mucli less than this for the whole State, as 
will be seen in the following tables. Corn was a light crop throughout 




«T^. -^ f ^ ON CURRRNT RIVFR 
'N. ^^ MISSOURI. 



MISSOURI. 29 

the whole corn belt last year, and the average was small, but there is no 
reason why the yield of corn for the State of Missouri should not be 
doubled without increasing the area planted by a single acre. Farmers on 
good lands, who take extra care of their corn, can obtain a return of 
eighty bushels per acre easily. It will bring cash always, as the farmers 
of Missouri are near to good markets, and it is the cheapest and best 
feed with which to fatten his pork, beef and mutton, which are always 
in demand at the best prices. It is a crop easily raised, suffers little from 
droughts, unless greatly prolonged, and cannot be injured by rains after 
it is ripened and before it is secured. In fact, the farmer can take his own 
time in harvesting, gathering it at any time during the winter, when 
other work is not pressing, thus avoiding the heavy expense of harvest- 
ing other crops. 

Below is given a table of the corn crop raised in the eight leading corn 
States for the year 1887 : 

Iowa, 183,502,000 

Illinois, 141,080,000 

MISSOURI, 140,949.000 

Nebraska, 93,150,000 

Kansas, 76,547,000 

Texas, 76,490,000 " 

Tennessee, 75,204,000 

Ohio, 73,797,000 

As in the production of wheat, Missouri is among the leading States, 
but in the raising of corn is nearer the head of the list, being the third, 
and only a few thousand bushels behind Illinois, which is second in the 
list. 

The following table gives the value of the corn crop of the same States 
for the same year, with Missouri in the third position : 

Iowa, $64,225,700 

Illinois, . . 57,842,800 

MISSOURI .52,151,130 

Nebraska, 27,945,000 

Kansas, 28,322,300 

Texas, 39,009,900 

Tennessee, 37,602,000 

Ohio, 35,422,000 



30 



) 


MISSOURI. 






Average yield per acre 


of same States : 






Iowa, . 




25 bushels 


per acre 


Illinois, 




19 


(I u 


MISSOURI, 


. 


22 " 


(( u 


Nebraska, 




24 


u a 


Kansas, 


. 


14 


11 iC 


Texas, . 




17 


a u 


Tennessee, . 




21 


u u 


Ohio, . 


. 


26 


u a 



In the average yield per acre, Missouri comes into fourth place ; but not 
because of inferiority of soil or other natural conditions. With a vastly 
inferior soil, New York State produces thirty-three bushels per acre of 
corn, or eleven more than Missouri. Rocky and barren little Maine, 
with a scanty, miserly soil, gives an average of thirty-five bushels to the 
acre. With the same cultivation and treatment Missouri ought, with her 
superior soils, at least to double her present average per acre. Besides, 
2,000,000 acres might be added to the area devoted to this crop without mak- 
ing a proportionately greater amount than is planted in Iowa and Illinois 
yearly. This additional acreage could be planted without encroaching 
upon the area devoted to any other crop. 

' Wheat and corn are the principal grain productions of Missouri; the 
most money is made from these crops and consequently more attention 
is given to their cultivation than to the others. Oats, rye, barley, buck- 
wheat, etc., thrive here and reach great perfection both in the quantity 
produced and the quality of the crop. Oats can be sown early and give 
immense yields and they always find a ready market. The annual pro- 
duction is about 25,000,000 bushels, not very much of which goes East, 
but is shipped to the South and Southwest, where there is always a 
demand for this class of grain, and Missouri is happily in a position to 
supply it. The other cereals mentioned are not mucli grown owing to 
the greater profit there is to the farmer in the staples of corn and wheat. 

GRASSES AND PASTURAGE. 



The next most valuable agricultural product to corn in this country is 
hay. The annual value of the hay crop of the country is between 
$350,000,000 and $400,000,000 dollars. It has been truly said that 
grass lays the foundation for all successful agriculture. In a State where 
grain growing is carried on exclusively, the soil, no matter how deep, 
and fertile soon deteriorates and loses its fertility in a greater or less 



MISSOURI. 31 

degree, as the course of events has clearly proven in some of the fore- 
most agricultural States. But where grain, grass growing and cattle rais- 
ing are carried on simultaneously, and in a well balanced proportion, the 
soil retains its fertility and brings a double profit to the farmer in the 
shape of butter, cheese and fat cattle in addition to grain and prevents 
the exhaustion of the soil. 

There are few or no grasses that are peculiar to Missouri, and it is for- 
tunate it is so, for were it otherwise, it would argue some peculiarity in 
the soil or climate that would perhaps, unfit them for many varieties of 
this great and almost universally diffused family of plants. The country 
that has a limestone soil can raise all kinds of grasses and has the basis 
of all agricultural prosperity. Everywhere grass grows luxuriantly and 
all known varieties thrive equally well, and nature having provided the 
■wild grasses so bountifully, the cultivated grasses have, until recently, 
been neglected. The soil and climate make this State the natural home 
of all the nutritious grasses and is particularly adapted to the famous 
blue grass which is so celebrated for the production of the high grade 
and priced stock of Kentucky. This springs up spontaneously wherever 
the soil is left free from the plow and pasture. Many instances of this 
kind could be cited showing how kindly this invaluable grass takes to 
the soil, furnishing when not grazed during the summer a most invalu- 
able winter pasturage, and productive here as in Kentucky, of the same 
fine horses and cattle, and bringing the same high prices in the market. 
Other varieties of grasses are fully its equal for pasturage and have the 
additional advantage of being cut and cured for hay. Farmers should 
sow a variety of grasses to secure a constant and regular supply of food 
for their stock. Orchard grass, timothy, red top, millet, Hungarian grass, 
alfalfa and clover take kindly to the soil, and in recent years have been 
extensively grown for pasturage and hay, and the latter for soiling and 
enriching the soil. Men who wish to raise stock are advised by some to 
go farther west and engage in the business on a large scale, but they 
should remember that the best parts of the range are occupied and fenced 
in, while at the best it is a hazardous business. One summer of extreme ' 
drought, or a winter of unusual severity, may blast all their hopes. Not 
so with Missouri. It is bounded and traversed by mighty rivers and 
their tributaries, and it is not subject to the terrible droughts which 
occur on the Western plains, should a severe winter come there is always 
plenty of hay and cheap forage in this great grain producing State. 



32 



iSnssouRi. 



STOCK RAISING AND DAIRYING. 



X^ MONG the industries that go to make Missouri a great State, stock 
^^ raising is by no means the least. Without disparaging or underrating 
other States, it can be truthfully said that for stock raising, Missouri pos- 
sesses unsur- 
passed advan- 
tages and all 
the conditions 
which go to 
make a suc- 
cessful stock- 
raising State. 
Undulating 
land is the 
coveted home 
for stock. They 
will not do so 
well on low 
level lands. In 
Missouri there 
are hills as 
rough as the 
highlands of 
Scotland, ex- 
tensive valleys 
fertile as those 
oftheNile,and 
prairies inter- 
spersed with beautiful groves of timber. 

Missouri reveals the spectacle of a State containing the finest grazing 
land right in the midst of a fertile and productive farming country, and 
surrounded by the most celebrated cattle markets in the country. 




CORN HUSKING, MISSOURI. 



MISSOURI. 33 

Long experience and careful estimates of the cost of land, and the 
amount and cost of forage necessary to raise and fatten the different 
kinds of stock for market justify the positive assertion that horses, cattle 
and hogs can be raised and fattened for one half of what it costs to do 
the same in the Eastern and Middle States, while sheep can he raised 
for one-third. There is no State so advantageously located with respect 
to good markets and nearness to consuming centers, and having at the 
same time such cheap and fertile lands, and where the cost of raising, 
fattening and getting them to market is less than right here in Missouri. 
The surface, the soil, and the climate of the State are such as to be con- 
ducive to the health of all farm animals. Contagious diseases, so com- 
mon in some States, do not infect the flocks and herds of Missouri. 

The shipping facilities in all directions are unsurpassed, both by water 
and rail. The great trunk lines of railroad cross tine State east, west, 
north and south, putting all sections in direct communication with the 
seaboard and great interior markets. 

To the southwest of St. Louis there is a region well watered, well 
timbered and shaded, clothed with nutritious grasses, where cattle can be 
herded and driven gradually southward to winter in the cane-brakes of 
Arkansas, and in spring to return upon the growing grass, until they are 
in one clay's journey of their market ; or where shelter can be easily and 
cheaply supplied, and crops raised in the valleys cheaply bought for 
feeding cattle during the winter if that should be desired ; where supplies 
are quickly and cheaply reached ; where there is no triangular fight 
between settlers, cattle and sheep men ; where herders would be wel- 
comed as buyers of stock and crops, and where their early lambs and 
calves could be cheaply and quickly marketed. 

The success of dairying in Missouri has been fully tested. Natural 
yellow butter of the very best quality is made throughout the year. A 
prominent and intelligent butter dealer and dairyman, who has had 
fifteen years experience in New York and twenty years in Missouri, 
expresses the decided opinion that this, as a dairy country, surpasses that 
of New York, Ohio or Wisconsin. He thinks the climate more favorable, 
the grasses better and the easy butter making period much longer, while 
the support of stock costs much less. North Missouri is washed by 
innumerable rivulets, creeks and small rivers, with rapid currents. The 
timber and prairie lands are in about equal quantities. This whole 
country is undulating and a soil of extra fertility. The streams never go 



34 MISSOURI. 

dry. The winters are short and snow rarely covers the gi'ound for one 
continuous week and the cUmate is healthful for man and beast and 
unusually favorable for the increase of the latter, and has all conditions 
necessary to the greatest results in the dairying interest. Milk, butter 
and cheese, can as a consequence be produced cheaper and with less labor 
in Missouri than perhaps anywhere else. ^Yhat has been said of North 
Missouri, is applicable to the greater part of that portion of the State lying 
south of the Missouri river. Much of this section of the State is quite 
broken and the extensive Ozark formation may be called mountainous. 
It is generally more thinly settled and much of it is the finest pastoral 
region on the globe. The streams are more numerous than in northern 
Missouri, and the water in this mountainous region, cooler and more 
unfailing, and the remarkable springs of Pulaski, Newton, Franklin and 
other counties, furnish a wonderful supply of cold water of uniform 
temperature throughout the year. Cattle uniformly graze until Christ- 
mas, and the crop of nutritious milk j^roducing grass that springs under- 
neath and is protected by the blue grass, if permitted to grow in the fall, 
affords excellent winter pasturage. 

This country, while possessing all the natural advantages of New York, 
as a successful dairy region, is quite as well situated as to markets for 
these products as the Empire State, as the great metropolis of the Missis- 
sippi valley, St. Louis, is on the east and Kansas City, St. Joseph and num- 
erous smaller cities in the interior are on the west, and it is well connected 
by through railway lines with the great Southwest and Rocky Mountain 
region, where very little dairying is carried on. The market for this class 
of products will be constantly enlarging, which will create an increasing 
demand, which will only be limited by the resources of the State in this 
direction. The shipping facilities are unsurpassed and all parts of the 
State are in direct and rapid communication with the great population 
centers and the region of the Southwest and West. 



MISSOURI. 35 



WOOL GROWING. 



Jl S a State for successful wool growing, Missouri needs no long array of 
^ s fine spun arguments drawn from the fertile imagination of theorists. 
The business has unobtrusively interwoven itself into the growth and 
progress of the State to such an extent that its general history could not 
be perfectly written without recording the growth and progress of wool 
growing and wool manufacturing within her borders. 

A large majority of Missouri farms are of rolling and undulating sur- 
face ; the soil being rich and productive, both in grains and grasses, 
making them peculiarly adapted to the business ; and no agricultural 
pursuit, as such, or which may include with it the keeping of any or all 
other kinds of stock, has been so jDrofitable within the last ten years as 
has sheep farming properly managed and persistently adhered to. 

On the ranch system, chiefly in the counties of southern Missouri, 
sheep raising has proved very remunerative, and there has been a 
greater or more certain increase, from the fact that the storms are less 
frequent and less destructive than in most other pastoral regions. The 
protection afi'orded by the mountains or high ridges and hills, on which 
are generally more or less timber, goes far to give stability and to assure 
profits to the business. 

Their security is not only assured in this way, but also by artificial 
shelter and protection which may be secured cheaply by lumber from her 
own timber, abundant in the regions of the State that are so well adapted 
to a sheep pastoral pursuit. Grain and hay may be provided in all parts 
of the State for an extended or extraordinary winter. 

The sheep do not have to travel miles for their daily supply of water, 
but springs and streams of pure running water are numerous and 
abundant. 

Another prominent and advantageous feature is the amount of grass 
which is growing among the timber, in the valleys, on the slopes and on 
the high hills or mountainous regions of southern Missouri. The grasses 
are not so tall and coarse as to be unhealthy for sheep, but they are the 
finer grasses, growing upon lands that are naturally well drained. The 



36 



MISSOURI. 




MISSOURI. 37 

climate is mild in winter, especially in the south half of the State. 
Snows are not frequent, nor do they lie upon the ground long enough to 
prevent sheep from having a living on the blue grass pastures, which 
exist, or may easily be secured, in all sections of this State. 

Blue grass is indigenous in Missouri. When the timber is removed it 
springe up spontaneously on the land, and when the prairie is reclaimed 
it soon takes possession and supersedes all other grasses. This ftimous 
grass is the foundation on which the mighty stock industry of Kentucky 
has been built, and has given a world-renowned reputation to its fine 
blood horses, cattle and sheep. 

There are tens of thousands of acres of land as well set in blue grass as 
those on which these careful experiments have been made and capable 
of being handled in the same way by sheepmen, which can be bought 
now at from ten to twenty-five dollars per acre, and hundreds of thous- 
ands of acres upon which blue grass is fast taking hold, and which will 
eventually be as good, if pastured by sheep, that can be bought for less 
than five dollars per acre. Facts concerning the value and capabilities 
of blue grass lands, warrant the assertion that ten thousand acres of 
these cheap lands, managed as a pastoral sheep ranch, and when fully 
set in blue grass, will keep more sheep and produce more wool than any 
ten thousand acre sheep ranch in the world. 

The rich and finely cultivated higher priced lands in all parts of the 
State are well adapted to the thoroughbred flocks of all varieties for the 
purpose of breeding. Nowhere will the animals of a given breed attain 
larger size or more fully develop the animal or mutton qualities than in 
this State. Her thoroughbred sheep will rank with any in the United 
States, or in the world, and her corn and fine blue grass will produce the 
best heavy mutton and lustre combing wool. 

But the great open domain of Missouri — the counties South of the 
Missouri River — is that which will interest wool growers who handle 
sheep on the pastoral plan. 

Here large tracts of land may be acquired for not over five dollars per 
acre, admirably adapted to this industry, on which whole communities of 
wool growers may settle with their families, and enjoy the benefits of 
advanced civilization, without exposure to the hardships, privations and 
dangers of border life. 



8S MISSOURI. 



MINES AND MINERALS, 



^flpHAT country or State where manufactures and agriculture are carried 
M on simultaneously and in about equal proportion, will Le the most 
prosperous and have the most equitable distribution of wealth. In a State 
that is exclusively one or the other, the wealth will be found in the 
possession of certain classes and the inhabitants may be divided into 
rich and poor. The working of mines and the consequent manufactures 
brings to a State a large number of inhabitants, who are consumers of 
agricultural products, and a State that is adapted to agricultural purposes 
as well as manufactures and mining, will always obtain right in its home 
markets, the highest prices for farm, garden and dairy products. 

We have shown in previous chapters that Missouri was adapted by 
nature to the most successful cultivation of all farm products, and we 
have also shown its exceptional advantages as a dairying State. We will 
now consider its mining and mineral resources and in the evenly 
balanced condition of these industries, the most casual observer cannot 
fail to see foreshadowed the future greatness, from a commercial stand- 
point, of the State of Missouri. 

Missouri has an abundant deposit of all the minerals used in the 
leading manufactures and is well adapted by the presence of extensive 
and inexhaustible coal fields, for the converting of the raw material, dug 
from the ground, into the shapes and forms for commercial use. 

COAL. 

Tlie Missouri coal fields underlie an area of about 2G,000 square miles. 
The southern outcrop of the coal measures has been traced from the 
mouth of the Des Monies through the counties of Clark, Lewis, Shelby, 
Monroe, Audrain, Boone, Cooper, Pettis, Henry, St. Clair, Bates, Vernon ^ 
and Barton, into the Indian Territory, and every county northwest of this 
line is known to contain more or less coal. Outside of the coal fields 
given above, coal rocks exist in Ralls, Montgomery, Warren, St. Charles, 
Callaway and St. Louis counties, and local or outlying deposits of bitu- 



MISSOURI. 39 

minoiis and cannel coal are found in Moniteau, Cole, Morgan, Craw- 
ford, Lincoln and Callaway counties. Estimates have been 
made as to the amount of coal in these deposits; but it is quite 
unnecessary to give them in this connection, as the reader can readily 
see that the supply is more than ample for the use of many generations 
to come. 

The coal mines of Missouri are usually easily worked and require no 
deep shafts or expensive machinery for hoisting -or drainage. They 
underlie the greater portion of the finest agricultural sections, not only 
of the State, but of as productive a region as is on the continent. Coal of 
good quality can be purchased at the mines so cheaply, that even when 
farmers have timber in abundance near at hand, they j)refer to burn coal 
rather than cut and haul wood a short distance. The coal area covers 
considerably more than one-half of the State, and active and systematic 
mining has opened the beds in more than a thousand places along the 
railroads and near the towns. There need never be any fear of a scarcity 
of fuel in Missouri, and the condition of the farmer here may, in this 
respect, be considered blessed far above that of those located in many 
portions of the Northwest and farther west, where buffalo chips, corn- 
stalks and twisted hay are all they can afford to temper the cold of more 
rigorous winters than we ever experience here. 

IRON. 

The fame of the iron deposits of Missouri is too well established to 
require more than a comment upon the bearing this most important 
metal is destined to have in influencing the future prosperity of the 
State. A distinguished mining engineer, after giving a detailed account 
of the mines which have been examined, sums up by saying : "They have 
enough ore in Missouri to run one hundred furnaces for one thousand 
years. More could not be desired, without the appearance of too much 
solicitude for posterity, who would be too far removed to appreciate our 
good wishes." Iron Mountain, Pilot Knob, Shepherd Mountain, Sim- 
mons' Mountain, and thousands of other deposits of lesser distinction, 
will glut the forges for all time to come of a district jet destined to be 
one of the grandest workshops of the world. Concentrated in a limited 
area, surrounded on all sides by the grandest agricultural district of the 
globe, with unlimited supplies of coal, with timber and water power 



40 



MISSOURI. 



unsurpassed upon the continent, with a genial climate and healthy homes 
for the operatives, and their food cheaply produced almost at their doors, 
^vith the world for a market, and transportation facilities for reaching its 
most distant point, it is not difficult to see a most prosperous future for a 
section so happily situated and so richly endowed. 

The manufacture of iron, and the industries growing out of it, are now 
in the State second only in importance to that of agriculture ; and yet 
these industries are only in their infancy. Hundreds of thousands of 
tons of ore are shipped out of the State annually, mostly to Pittsburg, 
Pennsylvania, to be converted into steel and metallic iron, and much of 
it returned into and across the State in rails and bars and manufactured 

articles, simply be- 
i ause our mills and 
luaimfactui'ers are 
unable to supply 
the demand. 

Oi)portunities for 
the profitable in- 
vestment of capital 
exist in hundreds 
of industries, i-ang- 
ing from the con- 
version of the ore 
into iron and steel 
to the manufacture 
of these materials 
"• - intotheirmostvalu- 
able forms. St. Louis, now the third manufacturing city in the Union, and 
other well located cities and towns throughout the State, are only just 
beginning to develop the x^ossibilities of their importance as manufactur- 
ing centers, and, as they increase, the value of the agricultural lands will 
be wonderfullv enhanced. 




FARM SCENE MISSOURI 

MISSOURI PACIFIC R Y 



LEAD. 

Next to iron the most important metal of Missouri is lead. Lead min- 
ing lias been carried on here for more than one hundred years, and the 
first discoveries of lead were made as early as 1720. Up to the j^resent 
time new discoveries have been frequent, and it is now conceded that 



MISSOUEI. 41 

there is probably no country on the globe so rich in lead deposits as Mis- 
souri. The mineral occurs in lodes, veins and disseminations, which are 
yet only partially determined ; but enough knowledge of the extent, depth 
and thickness of deposits has been acquired to show that their range and 
richness exceed any other known lead-bearing region in the world. 

There are several lead districts in the State, all south of the Missouri 
river, where the magnesian limestone rock — the great lead-bearing rock 
of the world — exists. The lead is not, however, strictly confined to this 
rock, but is also found in a disseminated form in ferruginous clays, slates 
and in gravel beds, or in cherty masses in the clays associated with the 
same. 

The soutlieastern lead district embraces all or parts of Jefferson, AVash- 
ington, Franklin, Crawford, Iron, St. Francois, St. Genevieve, Madison, 
Wayne, Reynol(,ls and Carter counties, with some mines in the western 
portion of Cape Girardeau county. Mining has been longest carried on 
in this district, and the aggregate of the production has been ver}^ great. 
But, with the exception of a few mines, the work has been chiefly surface 
mining, often carried on by farmers during the winter season, and the 
great deposits which require capital to develop may be said to liave, as 
yet, been scarcely touched. Tliis surface mining has often been so very 
profitable that mining lands acquired a great speculative value — too great 
for their purchase for agriculture — and this has rather retarded the devel- 
opment of this legion than otherwise. With the low price of lead which 
has prevailed for the past three or four years, the lands have again fallen, 
and the farmer can now buy them below their agricultural value, and, as 
has often been done, sometimes buy with them a fortune in an undiscov- 
ered mine. 

The central lead district comprises, as far as known, the counties of 
Cole, Cooper, Moniteau, Morgan, Miller, Benton, Maries, Camden and 
Osage. INIuch of the mining done here, again, has been near the surface, 
the lead first being found in clays, in caves and in masses in clay but a 
few inches below the surface. Shafts, however, sunk in the magnesian 
limestone, find rich deposits in lodes and pockets. 

The soutliern lead district comprises the counties of Pulaski, Laclede, 
Texas, Wright, Webster, Douglass, Ozark and Christian. It has been but 
little developed, but it is generally thought that it will prove a profitable 
field for miners when railways make it more easily accessible. 



42 MISSOURI. 

The western lead district embraces Hickory, Dallas, Polk, St. Clair, 
Cedar and Dade counties. Some rich deposits have been found in this 
district, especially in Hickory county. 

The southwestern lead district comprises Jasper, Newton, Lawrence, 
Stone, Barry and McDonald. Here very extensive mining has been 
done, more especially in the two counties first named, which have, for 
the last few years, produced more than one-half of the pig lead mined in 
the State. The famous mines in the Granby and Joplin districts have, in 
a few years, made those counties increase immensely in poinilution. 
Many lead furnaces are in active operation, and the industry is an impor- 
tant source of wealth. These mines are surrounded by a rich agricultural 
region, and the one industry has materially assisted in the development 
of the other. 

For several years past more than one-half the lead production of the 
United States has been from Missouri mines. Besides the numerous 
smelting works supported by them, the manufacture of white lead, lead 
pipe, sheet lead, etc., contributes materially to the industries and com- 
merce of the State. 

The amount of mining in southwestern Missouri amazes one who has 
not been familiar with the developments. For miles a line of stacks 
meets his view, and he is surrounded by the most valuable mines in the 
country. On the site where lead ore was first discovered, 15 years ago, 
a 40-acre tract brings to its owner a royalty of $50,000 a year. For a single 
acre lot, |60,000 has been refused, and the parties, by holding, have 
cleared $300,000, and are still working at a profit. Xhe only thing neces- 
sary for persons to accrue an immense fortune in this district is to buy 
large tracts and hold them for development. This region has been well 
named the poor man's country and the rich man's paradise. Many poor 
men have reached the mines without money to buy a pick or shovel, 
windlass or bucket, who have afterwards become very wealthy. The 
smelters buy the ore at the mines and haul it away. Each week the 
royalty to the land owner is deposited to hi^. credit in bank, thus requiring 
no personal supervision or presence. 

ZINC. 

It is not very widely known that Missouri produces nearly three- 
fourths of tlie zinc consumed in the United States annually, and still less 
is known even within the borders of the State itself of the mines which 



MISSOUKI. 43 

produce this great output. Passing over and through the Ozark moun- 
tain range, to the southwest of St. Louis, and far out on their western 
slope, and on the Lexington & Southern division of the Missouri Pacific 
railway, will he found the flourishing little cities of Carthage, Joplin and 
Wehb City. These are the commercial centers of the zinc and lead min- 
ing districts of southwest Missouri, and it is in their immediate vicinity 
that the greater part of the former metal is mined. The two counties of 
Newton and Jasper embrace the greater part of the region from which 
this very valuable mineral is dug. 

The zinc mines of Missouri are only a recent discovery. Fifteen years 
ago the present site of the principal mines of Webb City was offered for 
$15 per acre, but the wife refused to sign the deed. Now the royalty on 
forty acres of this tract amounts to $50,000 per year at the rate of seven 
and one-half per cent. On this same mineral belt there are single acre 
lots of 200 feet square that have produced in royalties, with no expense 
to the owners of the land, over $100,000. A single mine nine years ago 
sold for $325. Three years ago it sold for $14,000, and the present owners 
have just refused $900 per acre for the 40 acres. 

A strange feature of the mineral is that lead ore is found above the 
zinc ore, and wherever lead ore is found, zinc ore is found beneath it, 
leading to the conclusion that lead ore is the result x>f some chemical 
action produced by the zinc ore. 

At Galena, about ten miles from Webb City, the entire tract. was traded 
for a pony not many years ago. Eight acres of this have paid the own- 
ers a royalty of over $200,000, and an eighty acre tract adjoining has 
made the owners immensely wealthy, having paid them over half a mil- 
lion royalty. This is not the corporation and capitalist's mining country 
exclusively. The region has been well named the " Poor man's country 
and the Rich man's Paradise." Without exception every dooryard is 
a dump pile, a shaft in the center, with rope and windlass. Shafts are 
worked at a profit on lots 25x100 feet. Two hundred feet square is con- 
sidered a miner's lot. Without expense to the owner of the land, miners 
will sink a shaft and operate, paying the owner one-fifth royalty. 

A person not visiting the country can have no conception of the 
opportunities for profitable investment. There is an entire absence of 
speculation. People in the East, who have been content with invest- 
ments paying six, seven and eight per cent, can scarcely credit the state- 



44 



^MISSOURI. 



ments relative to the wonderful opportunities for sure, safe and very 
profitable investments in the lead and zinc district of Missouri. 

The mining interests are just in their infancy, although the product 
already exceeds $2,000,000 annually. The people are just awakening to 
the value of their property. At the same time mineral land can still be 
secured at reasonable prices from those who cannot appreciate at this 
time their prospective value, and who are satisfied with what they con- 
sider a large profit on land — which to-day sells at from $35 to $5100 per acre — 




A COUNTRY FORD. OZARK MOUNTAINS. 



which entry secured a few years ago at comparatively insignificant prices 
from the government. Much of the land when located was purchased 
from the government at a shilling an acre, and $50 represents an enor- 
mous advance, while the same land as soon as developed often changes 
hands at $10,000 to $50,000 an acre. The sulphurate of zinc, known 
among miners as blackjack, is often found in such quantities as to retard 
the progress of lead mining, and from the expense of getting the ores to 



MISSOUEI. 45 

the smelting works, it has been thrown out in dumps, and much of it 
left as worthless matter. This was formerly the case. But by the com- 
pletion of railroads, giving better transportation facilities, this ore has 
become valuable merchandise. The increase of railroad facilities, and 
the fact that sixteen new smelters will be erected this year, speaks vol- 
umes for the permanency of the mining interests of this region and their 
greater develojiinent in the near future. 

COPPER, GRANITE AND OTHER MINERALS. 

The mountains and hills of Missouri are filled with nearly every variety 
of minerals, and among them are found numerous outcroppings of cop- 
per, mainly in Dent, Crawford, Benton, Maries, Greene, Lawrence, Dade, 
Taney, Dallas, Phelps, Reynolds, Wright and Washington counties. 
Some of these outcroppings have been worked with varying success 
from time to time, but owing to lack of capital, well directed effort and 
facilities for shipping, the copper industry of Missouri is very little 
developed. There is no doubt that copper exists in paying quantities in 
many localities in the State and will in the near future bring good returns 
to investors. At present the only mines of copper that are successfully 
worked are located in southeast Missouri, in Washington and St. Gene- 
vieve counties. Some of the mines in Shannon county are now profit- 
ably worked and mines in Franklin county have yielded good results. 

The sandstones, granites, limestones and marbles of the State supply 
an abundance of fine and durable stone for all building and architectural 
uses. Sandstones are found in many beautiful shades of brown, red and 
buff which are easily worked when taken from the quarries and harden 
upon exposure. The granites of Missouri are equal to any in the world for 
building and paving purposes. They are solid, and beautiful. The red 
granite makes as beautiful and ornamental building and monumental 
stones as the celebrated Scotch granite. The finest and most substantial 
structures of St. Louis and Kansas City are built of granite and sand- 
stones taken from the mines of the State. 

Fire Clays underlie a large portion of the State and the manufacture of 
fire-bricks, gas retorts and other articles requiring the most refractory 
clays, has long been successfully carried on in St. Louis county. These 
clays occur here in the lower coal series and exist in great quantities. 
There are many beds of these clays found in the counties north of the 



46 MISSOUEI. 

Missouri river, and their quality is almost beyond computation. The 
most of them possess very fine refractory properties. Fire rock has also 
been found in abundance, some of the silicious beds of the coal meas- 
ures being very refractory. 

In addition to the foregoing large quantities of glass is manufactured 
from the deposits of kaolin in the eastern part of the State, and potters' 
clays, limestones, marble, tin, nickel, manganese, cobalt and paints are 
found in paying quantities. 

Missouri's greatest wealth lies beneath her soil and locked up in her 
hills and mountains. In manufacturing, Missouri should rival Pennsyl- 
vania, and should be a wealthier and greater State because of its greater 
agricultural resources. 



AS TO FRUIT. 



Jl S a fruit State Missouri stands without a i:)arallel. California is justly 
_ a celebrated in this respect, but the value of the fruit crop of Missouri 
annually exceeds that of California. It is not given to the production of 
one kind of fruit, but all varieties flourish equally well. The apple is as 
much at home here as in New York State, and the peach is not surpassed 
even by Delaware's celebrated product. Her vineyards and their pro- 
ducts in quantity and quality can compete with the world. 

The latitude of Missouri, between the 36th and 40th parallels is better 
adapted for successful fruit growing than is the country either north or 
south of it. Here peaches flourish as they do in few of the Northern 
States, while many tender fruits, such as apricots, nectarines, figs and 
many of the choicer varieties of grapes can be grown with ordinary care, 
and the fruits of the North, apples, pears, plums and cherries, grow here 
equally well with very much less trouble and care, all the labor of pro- 
tecting the trees from the biting frost of a long cold winter being quite 
unnecessary, as the winters are so much shorter and less severe than the 
New England season of frost and snow. 

Fruit culture in Missouri is still in its infancy ; yet great progress has 
been already made. None of the catalogue of fruits adapted to this lati- 



MISSOURI. 47 

tude fail of success in this State. Every owner of a lot of ground in 
almost every portion of the State can, with a small outlay of money and 
labor, raise all the fruit required for family consumption, from the straAV- 
berry and early cherry to the late keeping apple, and thousands of acres 
could, with a reasonable amount of labor properly bestowed, be converted 
into fine fruit gardens and orchards. The adaptation and capacity of 
Missouri to produce fruit for market and for transportation are unsur- 
passed. There is no question of the profit of raising apples for market, 
if a proper location is selected, good varieties planted, and reasonable 
care bestowed on the trees and on the fruit after it is gathered. 

Where other fruits grow so finely, apples, of all fruits the most inter- 
esting to settlers, cannot fail to succeed. The apples of Missouri are of 
remarkably fine color and size and many varieties flourish here so much 
better than in the East, that Eastern fruit growers often fail to recognize 
varieties with which they have had life long acquaintance, when Missouri 
calls their attention to improved and enlarged editions of the old time 
sorts. To locate the most favorable district for apple culture would be 
impossible. Those who have visited nearly every part of the State and 
made extensive observations among our fruit growers say, they have yet to 
learn of a single orchard with even the let-a-lone cultivation so common 
in the West, which has not been a source of profit to the owner. 

Pears do well throughout the State, especially in the region of Clay, 
Jackson and Cass counties. The tree attains a great size and age — a 
diameter of from twelve to fifteen inches is common — and the fruit is 
borne in great profusion and is very luscious. 

The southeastern portion of the State, along the line of the St. Louis, 
Iron Mountain & Southern railway, and in the western and southern 
portion where the marly deposits are so rich and extensive, are pre- 
eminently the peach districts, and in these regions the peach seems almost 
indigenous, never failing to produce most abundant crops ; and yet fruit 
growers of these districts say they are unable to supply the demand 
from Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, and from the great fruit market of St. 
Louis. Peaches may be relied upon as a profitable and sure crop in all 
that part of the State south of the Missouri river, and they are also suc- 
cessfully grown in the northern division of the State. 

But it is as a grape growing State that Missouri ranks above all others. 
Other States may compete with her in other fruits, but in grape culture 
she is the acknowledged leader, and Missouri grape growers have done 



48 



MISSOURI. 



more to advance this branch of horticulture in the United States than 
those of all other States combined. Missouri is the native habitat of the 
grape. Wild vines grow to great dimensions, sometimes reaching ten 
and twelve inches in diameter. Some of these have been cultivated with 




great success with the result of adding several valuable varieties to the 
list of standard grapes. These have an excellent adaptation to wine 
making. Missouri has originated more new varieties than anj^ other 



MISSOURI. 49 

State and that tier wines are of superior quality is attested by the fact 
that since its advent as a wine-making State, Missouri wines have 
received the highest awards at every world's fair. 

The native varieties of grapes while producing the best quality of 
clarets, Burgundies and sherries, are free from the grape blight, known as 
phylloxera, which has been so disastrous to the wine interests of France 
and lately has invaded California. There is consequently a great 
demcind for cullings from Missouri vines, which has been a source of 
revenue to the vinters of the State. The material is in Missouri to-day 
to comj^ete with France and Burgundy in their choicest red wines and 
with the Rhine and Moselle in their best hocks. 

While therefore the prospects of Missouri grape growers rest upon a 
surer basis than ever before, while the American grape grower feels as- 
sured of a grand success, the prospects of France, Germany, and in short 
all the grape growing districts of Europe, are darkening. The shortage 
in the annual vintage increases with each year while the demand is 
steadily on the increase. The demand must be met. The wine growers 
of Europe must leave their devastated and uncertain vineyards. Let 
them bring their skill and industry here and supply the demand that the 
failing vineyards are sure to create. There are millions and millions of 
acres of land in this State that can produce the wines. Men who are 
willing to work and wait a few years for the results of their labor are 
wanted; men who have sense, skill and industry enough to profit by 
the experience of those who have worked before them, who can adapt 
themselves to the different requirements of this climate. 

While possessing the natural advantages of soil and climate, there is 
still another advantage in fruit growing which Missouri possesses and 
that is a market near to home for all she can raise. It is located farthest 
to the westward of all the fruit States east of the Rocky Mountains. The 
States west with their hot dry climate, in which it is impossible to grow 
perfect fruit, stand ready to absorb the supply before it can reach the 
mining regions of the Rocky Mountains, where the demand for fruit is so 
great that it would consume the whole production were the State planted 
in one vast orchard and still ask for more. 

There are few parts of this great State from which fruit cannot find 
direct and convenient transportation to a market which is never over- 
stocked. All roads lead to St. Louis which is the greatest fruit market of 
the West. Then in later years there have sprung up on the west, the 



50 MISSOURI. 

great consuming centers of Kansas City and St. Joseph which annually 
require a great and ever increasing supply. Besides these mammoth 
market places the fruit growers of Missouri can ship their surplus to 
Iowa, Minnesota and Dakota where there is growing up an enormous 
demand for it. A great population is growing up in the western fruitless 
region which must be supplied and Missouri will always have the advan- 
tage of location in meeting the demand from this source. From the 
western portion of the State there are direct lines of transportation to the 
mines in the West, and the southern and southeastern sections have their 
capacity taxed to the utmost, to supply the needs of Texas and the 
rapidly growing Southwest which part of the country is reached by the 
Iron Mountain route. 

All these can be safely sent hundreds of miles to market and the great 
network of railroads radiating from St. Louis, and permeating the country 
in every direction, enables the fruit growers of Missouri to sell their 
products to the inhabitants of all that vast money-making, non-fruit- 
growing, but fruit-consuming country extending westward to the Rocky 
Mountains, and from British America to Mexico, and to find a i:)rofitable 
market in the States north, northwest and northeast of them. 

Perhaps no better proof can be given of the grand excellence of Mis- 
souri fruits than the fact that at several late meetings of the American 
Pomological Society, medals were awarded to Missouri for the 
best display of apples, pears and wines, and also for the best general dis- 
play of fruits, gaining these honors when in competition with every State 
in the Union, represented by their choicest fruits. One of these meetings 
was held at Rochester, N. Y., which has long been regarded as the very 
center of the fruit growing interests of the country. At the St. Louis 
Exposition in the fall of 1888, the Southwest Missouri Immigration Soci- 
ety had an exhibit of apples that surpassed anything ever gotten together 
for a local display. 




MISSOURI. 51 



CONCERNING LANDS. 



jjtt ISSOURI may be classed among the older States, having been made 
% one of the Union in 1821. It may, therefore, be taken for granted 
that there is not a large quantity of public lands, either State or govern- 
ment, still remaining open for homesteads. The railroads were induced to 
construct lines through the State in its earlier years, by the donation of 
large tracts of land. These, also, as in the case of government lands, are 
nearly exhausted. There is some still remaining, and a small portion of 
government land in southeast Missouri, which will be taken up and 
treated under headings of their own. 

The great inducements for coming to Missouri lie, not in the free gov- 
ernment lands and cheap railroad lands, but in the low price of well 
improved and excellent farming lands, near to through lines of railroad 
and in close proximity to first-class markets. Missouri, during the whole 
period of its existence as a State, has done very little to induce immigra- 
tion by setting forth the advantages of the State agriculturally, or in let- 
ting the world know what it had to offer in the way of making money 
and homes, to those who had money to invest and industry and enter- 
prise to acquire a competence. The State has grown slowly, because the 
process of finding out its worth has been slow. People, by gradually 
finding out in a slow way, by handing from one to another, what Mis- 
souri is, have come in, acquired wealth, and pushed the State, with their 
imaided eff'orts and scarcely without the knowledge of the outside world, 
into the third rank in agricultural resources and wealth. Very few real- 
ize, outside of the State, that Missouri stands third in the value of agri- 
cultural products. Yet such is the case, and it is all the more astonishing 
when it is taken into consideration how much of her resources are still 
undeveloped, and many, as yet, untouched. It is a matter of wonder, 
too, that so prominent and successful an agricultural State should reach 
its proud position and her general farming lands, from which her 
wealth is derived, remain so cheap. It is a fact well known that much of 
the improved land of Missouri can be obtained at figures at least as low, 
if not lower, than land several hundred miles farther west, on the 



^'2 MISSOUEI. 

extreme frontiers of civilization, where there are none of the advantages 
of schools, churches, railroads, cities and towns, and well organized and 
excellent society. The Missouri lands are cheap, and have improvements 
which will only come to the frontiersman by years of labor under the 
greatest drawbacks. There, there is no building material or timber. 
INIissouri is overflowing with it. Fuel must be brought from a long dis- 
tance, and can be had only at high prices. In Missouri the cost of fuel is 
almost nothing. In INIissouri there is fruit in plenty and all the luxuries 
of a comfortable home life on the farm. 
We have said that it was in the cheapness of general farming lands of 








PILOT KNOB VILLAGE AND MOUNTAIN. IRON MOUNTAIN ROUTE 

the State that the inducements to immigration mostly lie. The general 
price of land, except near to the larger cities, is low. No State, so well 
surrounded by good markets and so near the great centers of commerce, 
and with such complete systems of traffic thoroughfares, and with such 
great manufacturing centers within its borders, show^s such a discrei)ancy 
between its land values and great natural and commercial advantages. 

Of course there is a great range in land values here as elsewhere. Much 
of the land is l)roken and rocky, and fit only for pasturage, and there can 



MISSOUEI. 53 

be no better for this purpose. The famous dairy regions of New York 
are not better adapted by nature for dairying than are the hill and valley 
lands of central southern Missouri. This can be made the dairy region 
of the West. The price of these lands at present is a mere bagatelle, and 
the best of pasture lands, with abundance of water and shelter, can be 
purchased for from $3.00 to $7.00 per acre. 

The lands adapted to general crop raising range considerably higher 
than the preceding, but are still fabulously low, considering their quality 
and productiveness. If you are about to move West you are warned to 
beware of excursions into the wilderness. You will pass through some 
of the most fertile agricultural region in the country, where failure of 
crops is almost unknown, where markets are convenient and agriculture 
profitable. You will pay nearly as much per acre for semi-improved land 
on the frontiers of civilization as for land in Missouri which is all under 
cultivation and provided with house and stables that would require nearly 
as great an outlay as the original cost of the farm, owing to the scarcity of 
timbcT and high price of building materials. Good farming lands in 
Missouri may be purchased as low as $18 per acre that will produce all 
the grains and fruits of the United States. And the prices range from 
this amount up to $50 per acre for land in the choicest localities. The 
very best of farming land near to markets and railroads can be purchased 
for $20, $25 and $30 per acre, on which can be raised as much grain, hay 
and other produce as on the $100 acre farms of Ohio, New York and 
Pennsylvania: 

EXEMPTION AND TAXATION LAWS. 

It will be of interest to the home-seeker who contemplates taking up 
his abode in Missouri to be acquainted with the safeguards which the 
laws of the State throw around the workingman to protect him from the 
encroachments of money lenders. 

The laws of Missouri reserve from execution, in the hands of every 
head of a family living in the country, a homestead, consisting of one 
hundred and sixty (160) acres of land, not exceeding $1,500 in value; to 
every head of a family, in cities of over 40,000 inhabitants, a homestead, 
consisting of not more than thirty square rods of ground, and of the value 
of not more than $1,500. Thus, it is seen, that a farmer's homestead in 
Missouri consists of one hundred and sixty acres of land and the improve.- 



54 



MISSOURI. 



ments thereon, not exceeding in value $1,500; the homesteads of the res- 
idents of the smaller towns are of the same value ; while that allowed to 
the inhabitants of St. Louis, St. Joseph and Kansas City, where land is 
more valuable and the cost of living greater, is fixed at $3,000. 

The Constitution places it beyond the power of reckless or dishonest 
public agents to burden the people with excessive taxation. Taxes for 
State purposes, exclusive of the taxes necessary to pay the bonded debt 





A KtJMlWlbUEWUK. 



of the State, cannot exceed twenty cents on the hundred dollars valua- 
tion ; and whenever the taxable property of the State shall amount to 
$900,000,000, the rate shall not exceed fifteen cents. The rate of taxation 
for county, city, town and school purposes is likewise strictly limited. 
Counties, cities, towns, townships and school districts cannot become 
indebted beyond the revenue provided for each year, without a two- 
thirds vote of all voters therein, nor, in any event, to an amount exceed- 
ing five per cent on the value of taxable property. 



MISSOURI. 55 



THE TIMBER OF MISSOURI. 



HjflSSOUEI is not so densely and thorouglily timbered as some 
other States, and yet its resources in this respect are by no 
means inconsiderable. In truth, Missouri makes a very creditable 
showing in the amount and variety of her standing timber, as 
behooves a great State singularly blessed in respect of natural 
advantages. Possibly one-fourth of the total area north of the 
Missouri river is forest land, and one-half of that south of the 
same stream. The general line of demarkation between the prairie 
and timbered sections cannot be described to a nicety, because even the 
extreme western parts of the State are dotted, and its streams fringed, 
with forests of greater or less magnitude ; but, for all practical purposes, 
that part of the State lying east of a line drawn from Hannibal to Jeffer- 
son City, and thence south to the Arkansas border in Stone county, may 
be regarded as the more heavily timbered section. Over this large area 
are to be found an almost infinite variety of hardwoods, besides yellow 
pine in the direction of Arkansas, and many of the w^oods that are tech- 
nically "soft." For instance, there are three sorts of locust, three of wal- 
nut, four of maple, four of gum, six of hickory and eighteen of oak. 

The distribution of the different species of wood is admirable, on the 
whole, for mill work. There are regions of many miles in area over 
which only one or two, and certainly not more than three or four, varie- 
ties occur. In the counties of Mississippi, Stoddard, Scott, Pemiscot, 
Dunklin, New Madrid and Butler, in southeastern Missouri, the prevail- 
ing timber is white oak, gum, poplar, cypress and one or two varieties of 
ash. The oak of this region is among the best found in the State, and 
the gums are beginning to be used to a large extent noAV as a substitute 
for black walnut for many uses. The pine timber lands extend through 
Jefferson and Washington counties in a southeasterly, southerly and 
southwesterly direction, embracing Madison, Wayne and the northern 
part of Butler on the east, touching the Arkansas line in Ripley county. 
To the westward they pass through Reynolds, Carter, Shannon, Oregon, 



5(3 Missoum. 

Howard, Texas, Douglas, Ozark and Taney counties. The hillsides and 
valleys in some of these counties are also well timbered with oak, hickory 
and ash. 

Much of the timber of Missouri is exceptionally valuable, as a recent 
writer on the subject points out. The swamp oak, for example, which is 
abundant in the southern part of the State, is the best variety of wood 
used for ship-building, with the single exception of live oak. Cypress, 
which also occurs in the extreme southern counties, is, of course, known 
to be a ''coming wood." The growth of the forests in this State are, 
moreover, very heavy in some districts. Pine on the plateaus of Shannon, 
Carter, Keynolds, Oregon and Howell counties averages, in many places, 
from 8,000 to 10,000 feet to the acre. Ash, oak, maple and walnut are 
also dense, and heavy over large regions. Sycamores have been found in 
the State measuring 43 feet in circumference and 65 feet in height, if we 
may trust the statement, and cottonwoods have grown to a height of 125 
feet, with a girth of 30 feet. Some very large Spanish oak, black walnut 
and cypress trees have also been cut in the lower portion of the State. 

On the southern slope of the Ozark range, west of the belt of oak for- 
ests in eastern Missouri, along the line of the Iron Mountain Railway, is 
a rich belt of yellow pine covering the two southeasternmost tiers of coun- 
ties of the State. Fully 65 per cent of the area is yellow pine. It is of 
the short leaf variety, is remarkably free from resin and turpentine, and 
the lumber made from it well adapted for the interior finishing of houses. 
There are many magnificent trees in this region, and 4,000 to 6,000 feet of 
lumber are now cut to the acre, leaving the smaller growth intact. 

The timber in southern Missouri varies with the latitude. In the 
southeastern portion of the State the poplar, the sweet, black and yellow 
gum, the pine and cypress, the birch, the beech and the tulip tree have 
their home, and one scarcely, if ever, found in the northern or western 
counties, but through the entire region of southern Missouri. The forest 
trees are oak, walnut and hickory, elm, maple, ash and locust, with their 
varieties, cherry, cottonwood, willow, persimmon, pecan, hackberry, mul- 
berry, box elder, sassafras, growing to tree size, and, in the southwest, the 
chestnut and the chinquepin. 

A bill has been introduced in the State Legislature at Jefferson City 
providing for the incorporating of booming companies on the rivers of 
Missouri, especially on the Current river, the principal and lowest town 
on which is Doniphan. 



MISSOUEI. 



57 




58 MISSOURI. 

This plan is feasible and practical, and, if no opposition be made to it, 
it Avill, doubtless, be carried out sooner or later. The estimate, 400,000 
car-loads, of the lumber in easy reach of Current river is probably no 
exaggeration. The forests in this section are immense and the timber 
is of the finest and of the best varieties. As the matter now stands, the 
greater part is naturally tributar}^ to St. Louis, and, with the proper efforts 
on the part of St. Louis capitalists, the trade would preponderate in favor 
of that place. 

Doniphan is the largest town on Current river. It is situated ten miles 
north of the Arkansas line and immediately below the great pine belt. 
It is 200 miles from St. Louis, and is in direct railroad communication 
with it by means of the Doniphan Branch of the St. Louis, Iron Mountain 
& Southern Railway. It has a great advantage over any other point on 
Current river in the fact that it is below all the pine and most of the hard 
timber tributary to that river. Every log in reach of the river for 
100 miles up could be rafted to this place, sawed and shipped directly to 
St. Louis. Every log that can be boomed at Van Buren or Eminence 
could also be floated to this place, while for a distance of 35 miles above 
here no railroad touches the river, and the vast amount of timber in that 
belt can be shipped only through this place. Some of the larger creeks 
which run back into the pineries afford facilities for running logs into the 
river for considerable distances back in the hills during high water, nota- 
bly Big Barren creek, which empties into the river twenty miles above 
here. 

The valley of this creek extends 20 or 25 miles up into the heart of 
one of the finest pineries in the Union, which as yet is untouched. By 
cleaning out and straightening the channel of this creek, it could be 
made, during heavy rains, the means of getting all this timber to the 
river, and thence to the railroad at Doniphan. 

But the timber does not consist solely of pine. Vast quantities of hard 
timber, especially oak, is in reach of this place. To show the resources 
of this section in this particular, it is only necessary to cite what has 
been done in the hard timber land on the Doniphan Branch, 20 miles 
long. Since its building six years ago millions of ties and staves, and 
piling and lumber, in immense quantities, have been shipped over it, 
and still all the good oak timber within handling distance of the road is 
not nearly exhausted. 

Asli, hickory and gum are also in reach of this place. No better point 



MISSOURI. 69 

could be selected for the establishment of wood factories, mills, etc. It is 
true that there is to be an enormous business done in this section of 
Missouri at no distant date, and some city or cities will derive great 
benefit from it. Capital is all that is needed to develop it. 



ADAPTABILITY TO MANUFACTURES. 



1»pIST0IlY teaches that a people who with raw products alone attempt 
M^ to contest for wealth and population against a people elaborating 
these products are sure to be worsted. 

Missouri is important in having a swift creator of wealth, the most 
important demand of all active civilizations, an unlimited water power, in 
addition to the raw materials for manufacturing all the essentials of 
American civilization, "wool, cotton, timber, iron, copper, lead, zinc, coal, 
the raw material for paper, and many other minerals shown under a sep- 
arate heading. In this element of wealth, cheap motive power, this State 
is rich indeed. Not in all the Eastern States can there be found such a 
rolling, rapid river as the Gasconade, about 85 miles from St. Louis. Here 
every two miles or less there is sufficient fall to raise a dam that would 
afford power enough to run 500 looms. Magnificent powers are lying idle 
on the Osage, Grand river, Meramec, Black, White, St. Francis, Current, 
and numberless other streams within the borders of the State, and there 
is, perhaps, one of the grandest possible water powers in the West or South 
almost under the shadow of St. Louis. 

It is believed to be practicable to tap the Missouri river at or near 
Tavern Rock, in western part of St. Louis county, and to construct an 
artificial waterway down the valley by the way of and taking in its course 
Creve Coeur lake, only 26 miles from the city, where a fall of fully 32 feet 
could be secured to the banks of the Des Peres, or even pass through the 
southern portion of the city of St. Louis and empty into the Mississippi 
river above the mouth of the Des Peres. This would afford power equal 
to any now utilized in New England, and enable the factories on its banks 
the entire distance to stand within one mile or less of each other, without 



GO MISSOURI. 

interference from back water. Here twenty cotton and woolen mills could 
be erected, backed by superior location and facilities offered by the city 
of St. Louis. 

Creve Coeur lake is a large body of beautiful soft water, free of the 
metaloids that unfit it for bleaching goods and manufacture of paper. 
These industries would find here an admirable location, especially the 
paper mills. Materials for. its manufacture are produced all around the 
lake, and poplar, that now furnishes about seventy-five per cent of the 
material for manufacture of books and newspapers, grows in great abun- 
dance within a very few miles of the spot where the mills would be 
erected. The balance of paper material, straw, rags and cotton waste, 
would be supplied from the farms and mills and the markets of St. Louis, 
all very close at hand. Platin creek, 20 miles below St. Louis, is a beau- 
tiful stream of pure water, flowing from a sandstone bluff, soft as rain 
water ; is an admirable location for bleaching goods and the manufixcture 
of paper; is accessible by the Mississippi river, into which it flows, and 
the Iron Mountain Route, which crosses it about 10 miles above its 
mouth, by which material and manufactured goods could reach the mills, 
and goods shipped to St. Louis at a small cost. Besides these rare advan- 
tages of water powers, no State, perhaps, in the American Union has such 
extensive coal beds to be found in almost every county in the State- 
aggregating 22,000 square miles of coal of excellent quality — mined so 
easily and cheaply as to make the use of steam in propelling machinery 
almost as cheap as water power. Cheap fuel for steam and general family 
uses would enable manufacturers to erect works in a majority of the cities 
and towns of Missouri where operatives have their homes, and children 
working in the factories could live with their parents and add to the 
family revenue by the labor they perform in the cotton and woolen mills. 

Here manufacturers have the great advantage of a home market for 
articles turned out of looms and furnaces. St. Louis has been for years a 
full port for entry and appraisement. The ability of her merchants to 
duplicate any bill of foreign goods purchased on the Atlantic seaboard has 
drawn to her a class of buyers that hitherto purchased only in the mar- 
kets of the East. This has greatly augmented her trade in domestic 
fabrics, and to-day she is the largest market in the Mississippi Valley for 
such goods. 

They would be located where the material to manufacture is produced, 
or is collected without cost of transportation. In close proximity food 



MISSOURI. 



61 



for operatives is produced and delivered without commission, transporta- 
tion, interest or exchange, and, not the least important, they would have 
a home market for nearly all of the goods they can produce. Not having 



m 



w 



i,M' 




PALLS OP EVANGELINE. 

NEAR ARCADIA 
IRON MOUNTAIN ROUTE 



tliree frieghts to pay on material, food and 
on manufactured products, they could under- 
sell the mills of the East, that are compelled 
to pay these inevitable charges. 

In view of these facts and advantages, 
Missouri invites capital and machinery to 
settle within her environs. Her manufacturers are assured of a ready 
sale for all the goods a dozen mills could produce, and at such prices and 
saving in production as will pay a magnificent dividend on capital 



62 MISSOUKI. 

wisely expended. The wholesale jobbers are, without exception, anxious 
to see such mills established in Missouri, and will, at all times, give 
preference to home-made i3roducts over goods made outside of the State. 
It is apparent that the manufacturing industries are capable of great 
legitimate expansion. The importation of articles that might be manu- 
factured at a profit in the State, and thus supply the home market, is 
very large. The people are alive to fostering this branch of commercial 
interest, and, at all times, extend a welcome and, in many instances, 
substantial assistance to the manufacturing capitalist. 



SOMETHING FOR THE SPORTSMAN. 



R ISSOITRI has been the feeding ground for vast herds of the choicest 
J^^ of tlie large game animals up to the pi'esent generation. Old 
hunters and trappers still living tell marvelous, but true, stories of their 
exploits with the gun. As civilization and population advanced Avest- 
ward their numbers decreased, yet Missouri is still furnishing a very 
large proportion of the game for the markets of all the large cities of the 
United States. From October 1st to February 1st of every year there is 
not an express car arriving in St. Louis which does not bring large con- 
signments of game. The quantity is enormous and far beyond the 
knowledge of every one except those engaged in the trade, or whose duties 
bring them in contact with the fact. Deer are found in every jiortion of 
the State, and are especially numerous in the thinly settled, hilly and 
mountainous districts. They are also numerous in tlie swampy districts. 
The Ozark mountains and the swampy lands of southeast Missouri con- 
stitute a great deer paik and game reserve and will continue to do so until 
immigi'ation crowds them out. It is a notorious fact that venison sells as 
cheap as good beef in the St. Louis markets during the winter season. 

Game in the Ozarks of all kinds is most jjlentiful. It is a striking 
indication to the sportsman to see the skins of deer, wild cats, foxes, 
'coons, 'possums and minks hanging on the posts of the porticos in front 



MISSOURI. 



63 



of the country stores, while the skins of bears and wolves are not infre- 
quent. These skins tell an unmistakable story of the sport which tlie 
hunter can find in Missouri. The truth is that small game is so plentiful 
that it is practically ignored by the natives. 




In response to an inquiry a native said : 

''Did anyone thereabouts go gunning for game? Eight smart of folks 
did that. What did they kill? Most generally deer. The railroad 
brought right smart of folks from St. Louis gunning through that country. 
What else did they get besides deer? Turkeys. City folks sot a heap of 



64 



MISSOURI. 



store by turkeys, but folks didn't bother 'em very much less there was a 
workin's and meat was skeerse and no time to kill a deer. There was 
droves of turkeys up the river. How far? 'Bout two mile. It was scan- 
dalous the way them 'ud rassle with a farmer's corn. He'd as lief have a 
drove of hogs in a corn field as a flock of turkeys, and there wa'nt no 
keeping of them out. Partridges? Never see none. Quail? Do you 'uns 
shoot quail? Well I reckon 
they's tolable good eatin', but 
taint a mouthful 
apiece skeersely 
to the little 
things." 

The truth is 
that wild t u r- 
k e y s are no- 
where more 
l^lentiful in the 
United States 
than in the 
Ozark moun- 
tains. What, 
with the acorns and other 
"mast," mild winters, the 
great stretches of unsettled 
lands, and the indifference 
of the native sportsman, turkeys ^ 
thrive like barnyard fowls in Jersey. 
Nor is it necessary to lie in wait in a 
blind and call them to get a shot. 
It is as easy to get a shot at a turkey 
as to get a shot at a partridge in the 
Pennsylvania woods. 

As for squirrels and rabbits, they everywhere abound. There 
is but one drawback to the shooting of small game in this country 
It is so tame as to take the zest out of the sport. Except for the pleasure 
of having a well-stocked larder, there is no fun in shooting small 
game. However, if a man were to come here armed with a 20-bore 
double shot-gun and cartridges loaded with two drachms of powder 





SHEEP PASTURE 

SOUTHWEST MISSOURI 
MISSOURI PACIFIC RAILWAY 



MISSOURI. 



65 



and three-fourths of an ounce of say No. 8 shot, he could kill all the 
game he could carry without mutilating it. But if one would have 
real sport with small game a 22-calibre rifle would be the thing, and 
enough straightaway shots could he had at quail to enable a fairly 
good shot to fill a game bag. 

The deer are usually run into the river with dogs, as they are in 
the Adirondacks. This plan is adopted because it is less laborious 
than still hunting. The dogs do the traveling, while the sportsman 
sits down on the river bank and rests. 

One might travel over a very wild region without finding a more 
lovely place to rest in than a nook on the banks of White river. The 
hills and mountains, 
when dressed in the vary- 
ing shades of brown and 
gray, are scarcely less 
beautiful than in the fresh 
bloom of spring. The sky 
has the blue haze of Indi- 
an summer and the air 
is as invigorating as a 
sea breeze i n August. 
The water of the river is 
so pure and clear that 
one may count the stones 
on the bottom ten feet below the surface. There is even a charm in 
the naked white limbs of the sycamore that reach out in all directions 
like ghostly arms striving to clasp something as the wind sways 
them. 

Deer are very easily stalked here in the right weather. The weather 
is right immediately after or during a rain storm or a snow storm. 
Snow often falls to a depth of six inches, and sometimes remains several 
days. When the leaves are well soaked with water one may dress in a 
suit of brown, and, with rubber shoes instead of boots, walk within 
range of the deer without difficulty. Of course they are not as tame 

as the turkeys and quail. In the vernacular here, "they are not so 

tame, jest tame." They are commonly hunted with shot-guns, the rifle 
being reserved for squirrels, and, in case it is a repeater, for men. 




66 ]\IISSOURI. 

The country abounds in foxes and wild cats, however, the foxes 
being the more numerous, of course. Both sorts of brutes grow fat 
on fur and feather. Naturally, the 'coon and the 'possum are still more 
numerous. 

The way for Eastern people to go shooting in this country is to go 
as far as they can l)y rail and then hire what they call a freighter's 
wagon and a driver who can cook. Into the wagon pack sutticient 
supplies to last as long as tlie hunters desire Iq stay. The supply need 
not include feed for the horses, for corn and "roughness," which is the 
localism for fodder, are to be cheaply and con v^eniently obtained from 
the natives. The camp is not likely to be made further than five miles 
from a supply of corn and fodder. From $2 to |2.75 a day will pay for 
the driver and his rig, if one does not go to a livery stable. Plain food 
is much cheaper here than in the East. The transient rate for travelers 
at hotels is $1 a day. By the month the price is from |10 to $12, and 
that for good food and clean lodgings; so the expenses of camping 
out Avould be very low indeed if high-priced canned goods were not 
brought from the city. 

Prairie chickens are found exclusively in the prairie regions of Mis- 
souri, which embrace nearly one-half of the State. They are shipped 
from Missouri to Eastern and other markets in vast numbers. Quail, 
the gamest of birds, abounds in all parts of Missouri. Their favorite 
haunts being in and around farms, the numbers are increasing as the 
number of farms multiply. This bird is a general favorite with farmers, 
sportsmen and epicures and gives more pleasure than any other 
game. 

The early settlers found the rivers and lakes teeming with many fine 
varieties of food and game fish. There is still a bountiful supply, but of 
course not as great as w^hen the State was more thinly settled. 

Black bass, perch, croppie, cat fish, buffalo fish, suckers and pike con- 
stitute the leading varieties of native fish. 

Black bass of several varieties iidiabit every stream of considerable 
si/e in the State. 

The percli family is represented by several dozen species, and perch 
of several kinds are found in every body of water in the State which 
does not actually dry up in tlie summer. 



MISSOURI. 67 

The cat fish of Missouri are not only numerous, but famous the world 
over. There are at least a dozen species in the waters of this State. They 
vary in size from 1 to 100 pounds. The cat fish is a good food fish, but 
so common that it is not appreciated. 

The buffalo fish is the largest of the numerous sucker family in this 
State. They often attain a weight of twenty pounds and upwards. It is 
a good food fish and is found in every portion of the State. 

Pike of several species are found throughout Missouri and rank with 
black bass as game fish. They are found in the clearer and rapid streams. 

The above list constitutes the leading fish of the State, butiby no means 
all, as there are manj^ minor species. 



EDUCATION AND SCHOOLS, 



'pT has been asserted bj^some and assumed by others, who do not know 
m. the facts, that a public spirit of opposition to free schools dominates 
legislation in Missouri. On the other hand, Missourians claim that no 
policy of government is more firmly rooted in the affections of the people 
or more securely established than the purpose to extend the advantages 
of a liberal education to all classes. 

No State in the American Union has ever manifested more zeal in the 
cause of popular education than Missouri ; nor is her present attitude the 
manifestation of a new impulse. When she began her existence as a 
State she began an earnest effort in behalf of education, and there has 
been no abatement of that effort, unless the unavoidable interruption of 
the course of events during the civil war be so regarded ; and he who 
charges that the State is opposed to free schools, or ever has been, is chal- 
lenged to name that State which fills his ideal, educationally, and invited 
to a comparison of the temper of the two States on the subject. 

The third proposition of the Act of Congress of March 6th, 1820, per- 
mitting Missouri Territory to form a State government, declared tliat five 
per cent of the net proceeds of the sales of public; lands within the terri- 
tory should be reserved, after January, 1821, for making roads and canals. 



68 MISSOURI. 

three-fifths to be used in the State, and two-fifths in constructing a road 
or roads to the State. 

The convention which assembled in July, 1820, in pursuance of this act 
of Congress, requested such a modification of tliis proposition as would 
permit the whole of the five per cent to be used in the State for the pur- 
poses named "and the promotion of education in the State." Thus the 
people of Missouri manifested a solicitude for the education of their 
children in the outset of the State government. And when it is remem- 
bered that Congress had oflered and they had accepted the magnificent 
gifts of the sixteenth section of every township of land for schools of 
those townships, and thirty-six sections of land for the use of a seminary 
of learning (the State University), the request for further aid in this direc- 
tion shows that they regarded the question of education as one of tran- 
scendent importance. 

The article on education in the Constitution of 1820 (Art. VI.) con- 
tained only two sections. The first section provided that "schools and 
the means of education shall forever be encouraged in this State," and 
directed the Legislature to preserve the school lands from waste and to 
apply the proceeds of any sales which should be made "in strict con- 
formity to the object of the grant." It also directed that one or more 
schools should be established in every township as soon as practicable 
(that is, as soon as there were suflScient funds on hand) and necessary. 
The second section provided for the care of the seminary or university 
lands. 

The article on education in the Constitution, adopted in 1865 (Art. IX.), 
has nine sections. The first reads "A general difi'usion of knowledge and 
intelligence being essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties 
of the people, the General Assembly shall establish and maintain free 
schools for the gratuitous instruction of all persons in this State between 
the ages of 5 and 21 years." 

Section 2 provides that separate schools for children of African descent 
may be established. 

Section 3 creates a Board of Education, to consist of the State Superin- 
tendent, Secretary of State and Attorney-General. 

Section 4 provides for maintenance of the University, with departments 
in teaching, in agriculture and in natural science. 

Section 5 describes and perpetuates the public school fund and directs 
the application of its income. 



MISSOURI. 69 

Section 6 requires the State fund to be invested only in United States 
bonds (amended in 1870 so as to permit investment in Missouri State 
bonds) and the county funds to be loaned. 

Section 7 requires the maintenance of schools for at least tliree months 
in the year as the condition of receiving any part of the income of the 
public school fund, and permits the Legislature to provide for com- 
pulsory education. 

Section 8 provides for local taxation for schools. 

Section 9 provides for the reduction of lands, money or other property 
held for school purposes into the public school fund. 

The article on education in the Constitution adopted in 1875 (Art. XI.) 
contains eleven sections. The first is an exact reproduction of the same 
section of the Constitution of 1865, except a change of school age from 
between 5 and 21 to between 6 and 20. 

Section 4 adds the Governor to the State Board of Education. 

Section 7 requires the annual appropriation of 25 per cent of the State's 
revenues, exclusive of the interest and sinking funds, for the maintenance 
of schools. (This is the first appearance in the organic law of a provision 
for the ordinary revenue to education.) 

Section 11 forbids the appropriation of any public money in aid of any 
religious creed, church or sectarian })urpose, or to sustain any school 
controlled by any religious creed, church or sectarian denomination. 

These, with a few minor and immaterial changes, and with l^etter pro- 
visions for the State University, are the only additions to the same article 
of the Constitution of 1865. 

But Section 43 of Article IV., of the present Constitution, fixes the 
order in which the General Assembly shall make appropriations of 
money, and prohibits any appropriations until that which has precedence 
in this order has been made. Now the third item in the list is "for free 
public school purposes." The seventh, and last, is ''for the pay of the 
General Assembly," etc. 

In so far, therefore, as the will of the people is expressed in the organic 
law, the sentiment of Missouri has always been clearly and forcibly stated 
in behalf of public schools. 

There are three other means of testing public sentiment. The attitude 
of representative citizens, the provisions of the statutes and the character 
of the schools. 



70 



MISSOURI. 



The entire sixth article of the Constitution is devoted to providing for ^ 
common schools, of which there are now about 10,000 in the State, and a 
"University for the promotion of the arts, literature and science." It 
should be said, therefore, to the honor of the founders of the Common- 
wealth of Missouri, that provision for the 
higher education, as well as for the lower, 
was no afterthought. It is not some- 
thing that has been thrust upon the State 
by any recent measures, but the idea of 
the district schools and of the 
University was incorporated in- 
to the very life of the State at its 
birth and now vitalizes its best 
hopes of the future. 

The University contemplated 
in the formation of 
the State has l)een 
in active operation 
for about 40 years, 
and has attained a 
position, with its 
foculty of thirty 
professors, eight 
hundred students 
and three-quarters 
of a million of prop- 
erty, which, at the 
present, places it in 
favorable compari- 
son with the lead- 
ing institutions of 

the country. When its work and the work 
of the private schools, academies and 
colleges are taken into consideration, the 

opinion may be intelHgently and fairly uttered that the people of Mis- 
souri have no occasion any longer to send their sons and daughters out 
of the State to be educated. They can obtain within tlie State as good 
an education as they can find without, and will have the additional 




MISSOURI. 71 

advantage of growing wp with those with whom they will be associated 
in after life and of strengthening the institutions whose interest they 
themselves may be expected to share in administering, not to speak of 
t'he economy and financial advantages consequent upon patronizing 
home institutions. 

As to the colored people, the State has made a most liberal separate 
provision for their common schools, and, in Lincoln Institute, for their 
normal and higher education. 

The State sustains four normal schools ; including tbe one for colored 
students mentioned above, and a normal department of the State Univer- 
sity. 

The State funds for education (permanent) amount to $8,000,000, and 
are constantly increasing. In addition to this the State makes special 
appropriations for the University and normals. 

This, in brief outline, is a partial view of education in Missouri, its 
origin, continuous progress and present excellent condition. In this State 
the immigrant is assured as substantial guarantees for the education of 
his children as can be offered anywhere. 



LABOR, WAGES AND TAXATION. 



WN regard to the laboring classes in Missouri, their privileges, rights and 
^ prospects, it can be said that : 

The course of legislation in Missouri has wisely tended uniformly 
toward the protection of the rights of the laborer, so that he has now a 
lien upon property improved by him, and no property of the employer is 
exempt from seizure, on execution issued by virtue of a judgment 
obtained for wages. 

The climate of Missouri is such as to allow laborers to work out of 
doors a very large percentage of the days throughout the whole year, both 
summer and winter. In the Northern and Eastern States the great depth 
of snow and extreme cold prevent outdoor labor for four to six months in 
the year, so that the profits made during the I'omainder of the year are 
wholly appropriated -to feed the stock of farmers and support families. 



72 MISSOURI. 

Missouri has not yet made inroads upon her vast natural resources. 
Her forests are yet to he leveled, her mines developed and worked, her 
countless acres subdued and cultivated. Again, as she has unprecedented 
productive power, as varied as great, so she has, by her marvelous trans- 
portation fai'ilities, great advantages over States not as fortunately circum- 
stanced, hence her products find ready market at fair prices, and the 
industry of man obtains a sj^eedy and adequate reward. 

The Avages paid in Missouri, regard being had to the time a laborer may 
work in a year, the cost of Uving, including food and clothing, compare 
favorably with wages in other iStates, and are higher than in a great 
majority of the States. 



SOUTHWEST MISSOURI. 



WfHE great rush of homeless humanity to Oklahoma reveals the impor- 
H taut and startling fact that nearly all of the desirable government 
lands of the United States are already settled and that cheap homestead- 
ing, the source of the Nation's rapid growth and prosperity, is nearly at 
an end. The attention of those now desiring a home on the soil will be 
drawn to the cheaper improved lands that have been passed over in the 
rush to occupy the virgin prairies. Among all such regions Missouri, 
while being the most desirable, has been as well the most neglected and 
poorly advertised. There are, in this great State, thousands on thousands 
of acres of great fertility, which could be cultivated and improved at less 
actual cost than is necessarily involved in a long journey to the Indian 
Territory. 

Southwest Missouri, which includes the counties of Barton, Bates, Cass, 
Cedar, Coal, Clinton, Johnson, Moniteau, Pettis, Morgan, St. Clair and 
Vernon, is the most favorably located with respect to desirable farming 
lands, minerals and numerous other advantages, and offering very cheap 
lands of any i)art of the St;ite. These lands will produce a wider range of 
agricultural and horticultural products than any other equal area in the 
United States. Where vast mines of coal, zinc, lead, copper, clay, tim- 
bered resources and water power are unsurpassed. The climate is the 



MISSOURI. 73 

most liappy medium between extremes obtainable. The educational 
facilities are unsurpassed, and a social, moral and religious status is 
squarely of the highest standard known to the age. At the present the 
country embraced by the counties named has scarcely more than one-fifth 
of the population which it is capable of sustaining. Opportunities for 
manufacturing are unlimited, and lands both improved and unoccupied 
can be l>ought remarkably cheap. Now would seem the most opportune 
time for southwest Missouri. The inevitable reaction from the Oklahoma 
boom should be made to work to advantage by inviting opportunites for 
securing cheap homes to the benefit of good and sure markets in this 
State. A large portion of those who are on the move for the purpose of 
obtaining a home should have their attention called to the mild and 
healthful climate of this region. The land, well timbered and well wat- 
ered with pure limpid streams, numerous medical and mineral springs, 
where every opportunity is aflTorded the laborer and capitalist to increase 
their fortunes and surround themselves with the comforts and luxuries 
of life. We herewith give a hasty review of the counties just before 
mentioned. 

BARTON COUNTY 

Is located in the western tier of counties, about 120 miles south of Kansas 
City. The surface is gently rolling or undulating, not being too flat to 
drain well or so rolling as to wash. The soil is a rich, sandy loam, easy 
of culture and slow to feel the effects of a drought ; and, of the 375,000 
acres in the county, there is scarcely a quarter section tliat would not 
make a desirable farm. The growth of this county has been remarkable. 
Society is as good as can be found anywhere. In eight years the assessed 
valuation of the property has increased from |2,000,000 to $5,000,000, and 
the population more than doubled. There is a permanent school fund of 
over $124,000 per year; and the great agricultural and fruit products 
are not alone the source of all her wealth and grandeur. Coal veins of 
minable thickness are found in over half the townships of the State and 
the output for the year 1888 approached nearly 200,000 tons. Barton 
county is in the great fruit valley and possessing innumerable fine 
orchards, where luscious fruitage finds its way in great quantities to 
Kansas, Colorado, Texas, Alabama and even Tennessee. This industry 
demands very little care or expense after once the orchard is planted. 
There are several thriving towns in the county, containing numerous 



74 



MISSOURI. 



small maiiufaeturiiig establishments, and the railroads of the connty are 
amply suthcient for all present needs. Land varies in price, according 
to location, quality and other considerations that usually give varying 
values to real estate. Raw lands are worth from $6 to $14 per acre. 







Improved farms range from $15 to $40, and good farms, with ordinary 
improvements, can be had from $18 to $25 per acre ; and these lands, for 
agricultural purposes, are not inferior to any in the world. 



MISSOURI. 



BATES COUNTY 

Is also one of tlio border counties of Missouri and, in consequence, suf- 
fered much during tlie war and was entirely depopulated. At present it 
contains a population of 40,000 and assessed valuation of about $8,000,000, 
which is remarkable considering its condition fifteen years ago. Its rapid 
development is owing to its unsurpassed natural resources, and the 
county is entirely free from debt of any nature ; has splendid schools and 
school buildings and a permanent school fund. It is 50 miles south of 
Kansas City, and the surface in the main is high rolling prairie, with 
much fine timber. The soil, being for the most part underlaid with 
limestone, cannot be surpassed in fertility by any county west of the 
Mississippi. From 40 to 75 bushels per acre of well matured corn is pro- 
duced each year, and every acre properly cultivated, and the average 
yield of wheat is from 15 to 30 bushels per acre. Vegetables of all kinds 
are cultivated with success, and tobacco of fine quality can be grown to 
advantage. The climate is temperate, the winters short and mild, and, 
consequently, fruits of all kinds do well. Large orchards of apple and 
peach trees and fine vineyards of grapes can be found in all parts of the 
county. Several valuable varieties of hard wood timber are found in the 
county, including walnut, oak, elm, ash, hickory and linden. It is well 
watered, having the Osage river and its tributaries, which are fed by 
perennial springs which abound all over the country. The coal meas- 
ures underlie the greater part of Bates county, and the number of tons of 
coal has been estimated at about 6,500,000,000. In addition to coal, there 
are mines of fine building stones, fire clays, and w^ells of natural gas have 
recently been found. Zinc and lead are mined in great quantities at 
Rich Hill, and this point is rapidly coming into prominence as the man- 
ufacturing metropolis of southwest Missouri. 

CASS COUNTY 

Is another of the border counties of Missouri, a little south of Kansas 
City, has a large public school fund and school houses furnished with all 
the latest ai:)pliances. All the agricultural i)roducts peculiar to this cli- 
mate, including wheat, corn, oats^ barley flax, millet, orchard grass, 



76 MISSOURI. 

timothy and clover, arc grown in great profusion and abundance, and is 
one of the greatest live stock producing counties of the f:?tate. There 
are six railroads crossing the county which have not less than twenty 
shipping points. Prices of land range from $15 to |100 per acre, gov- 
erned by quality, location, improvements, etc., which price will be found 
remarkably low Avhen it is remembered that the northern border of the 
county is in sight of the smoke of Kansas City. Apples, pears, peaches, 
apricots, cherries, i)lums, raspberries and strawberries attain their great- 
est perfection here. 

CEDAR COUNTY 

Is in the second tier of counties from the Kansas line ; the surface is 
diversified in the eastern part, being somewhat hilly and broken and 
covered with timber, while in the western portion it is undulating and 
l)rincipally prairie land. The soil is of two kinds, black loam and red 
mulatto, grain of all kinds peculiar to this latitude growing luxuriantly. 
The yield of such products as corn, wheat and oats in favoj'able years is 
very high, and of unsurpassed quality. For stock purposes it has as many 
inducements as any portion of the State. Pasturage is good, water pure 
and abundant, and many well sheltered localities. This is one of the 
finest fruit regions in the AVest. By simply planting the trees, an abun- 
dance of apples, plums, cherries, pears, etc., are assured, and small fruits 
of all kinds seem peculiarly adapted to attain their greatest perfection 
in Cedar county. The selling price of land ranges from $2.50 to $50 per 
acre. 

There is not a dollar of public indebtedness existing, and taxation 
is very low. It is well supplied with streams and has abundant water 
power for manufacturing. Schools receive a large share of public atten- 
tion ; school houses are large and conveniently located and the average 
term length is seven months. Iron, coal, zinc and lead abound in great 
quantities, and the mineral springs of Eldorado have already attained 
great fame as a "health and pleasure resort." No finer timber is found 
in the State, the quantity is inexhaustible, and consists x^riiK^'ipally of 
maple, oak, walnut, hickory and pecan. Here might be established suc- 
cessful furniture and agricultural implement manufactories. The price of 
timber land ranges from $3 to $8 per acre. 



MISSOURI. 



COLE COUNTY 

Shares the bounteous gifts which Nature has bestowed in southwest 
Missouri, and its population of late years has been increasing very rap- 
idly. The soil, on account of its limestone basis, is of inexhaustible 
fertility, easily cultivated and varied in its products. There is abundance 
of pure water in springs, creeks and rivers, giving it perpetual and abun- 
dant supply for flocks and herds, and furnishing excellent drainage over 
the face of the country. Wheat, rye, corn, barley and oats never fail. 
Grasses grow in natural and unstinted abundance. All kinds of fruits, 
vegetables and garden products are of the highest quality, as well as in 
the greatest abundance. The Missouri washes the northern border and 
the Osage river flows for nearly 50 miles on the southern and southwest- 
ern limits. Of the total area of the county, 240,000 acres, only 70,000 at 
present are under cultivation, the rest is given over to range and pasture 
lands. Much of the older land can never be used for any other purpose, 
but, by careful methods, large quantities of it, ranging in price from $2 to 
$12, can be brought under successful and profitable cultivation. Churches 
and schools are well provided in all parts of the county ; railroad facili- 
ties are unsurpassed, three main lines running into and through the 
county. Jefferson City, the capital of the State, is located in Cole 
county. This county is admirably located for dairying and for the raising 
of sheep and cattle for the markets. There are inexhaustible mines of 
coal, lead and zinc within the borders of the county. 

HENRY COUNTY. 

Although Missouri was admitted as a State in 1830, it w^as not until 
some years after the war that anything of moment was done towards 
developing this county. It is, properly speaking, a prairie county, amply 
watered by some 25 streams, whose banks are lined with timber, thus 
affording abundance of fuel, and that, too, of the best variety, such as 
black walnut, hickory, pecan, and nearly all the species of oak. The 
soil is on a limestone base and produces excellent products of almost 
everything known to this latitude, the staples being corn, wheat, oats and 
grasses of all kinds. Corn will produce as high as 100 bushels per acre, 
with good farming, and wheat 40. Fruits do well here and all varieties 



^S MISSOURI. 

knoAvn to the Temperate Zone are raised, incliuling apples, peaches, 
plums, apricots, chei-rics, pears, while grapes and berries arc very pro- 
lific. Stock raising is a grand success where properly conducted, and 




much of the land of this county is specially adapted to this purpose and 
dairying. Coal is very valuable and large quantities are mined and 
shipx^ed from the county annually. School and church privileges are 



MISSOUEI. 79 

well looked after, the county having a permanent school fund of <p52,000. 
Good, fan- farming lands can be purchased at from $18 to $25 per acre; 
the best lands sometimes run as high as $40, although good, well improved 
places can Ije had for $25, according to location. These are all improved 
lands. Cheaper lands can be obtained as low as $15 per acre, and the 
greater part of the land of the county is capable of being brought under 
cultivation. Taxes are very low. Considerable attention is given to 
creameries and dairying, and there is an exceptional opportunity in the 
county for investment in various manufactories. 

JOHNSON COUNTY, 

The fairest spot in this wealthy Commonwealth, is situated in the west- 
ern central part of the State and contains about 900,000 acres, almost 
every acre of which is tilled. In 1865 Johnson county was sparsely set- 
tled, but it now contains a population of 40,000 people, and an assessed 
valuation of $11,000,000, and all this has been achieved within the short 
space of 20 years. It is an undulating plain, cut with numerous streams 
whose banks are covered with heavy belts of valuable timber. The high 
soil is of rich loam, from two to eight feet in depth, and is underlaid with 
limestone. The soil produces numerous crops of wheat, corn, barley, rye 
and oats. Although a prairie country, it is well supplied with timber, 
consisting of hickory, oak, elm, ash, honey locust, linden and walnut. 
Grasses grow luxuriantly, and the blue grass springs up spontaneously as 
in the famous blue grass regions of Kentucky. In addition to its being 
an excellent farming country, it is also a successful grazing region and is 
capable of producing the choicest of fruits of all varieties. Coal of the 
very best quality is found near the surface and natural gas has been dis- 
covered. The price of land varies with its quality and location, from $20, 
$25, $30 and $35 per acre ; farms and very choice locations near town sell 
for $50. These lands have a greater productive capacity than thousands 
of farms in the older States that sell for $75 and $100 an acre. 

MONITEAU COUNTY 

Occupies about the exact center of the State of Missouri, is mainly 
undulating prairie with a deep, black soil, easy to cultivate, and never 
failing to yield bountiful returns to intelligent cultivation. Corn, wheat, 
oats, rye, barley, flax and tobacco grow to perfection, as well as all the 



80 MISSOURI. 

tame grasses. Stock raising is extensively carried on and constitutes a 
great source of wealth for those engaged in it. Live stock diseases are 
almost entirely unknown here. This seems to be the established home 
of fine fruits. Thousands of bushels of apples are annually shipped from 
the county, being better than any other crop. Peaches, pears, plums, 
cherries, apricots and other varieties of small fruits, repay abundantly the 
labor of the horticulturist. Coal is found near the surface and is exten- 
sively mined. Zinc ore is found in great quantities as well as lead, its 
co-metal. Clays and building stone are also found. The county is well 
watered, and forests of valuable oak, walnut, hickory, ash and elm cover 
a large part of the county, affording excellent opportunities for furniture 
and farming implement manufactories. Schools are amply provided, 
all the church denominations are represented, and taxes are light. The 
county is well supplied with railroads, and farming lands can be bought 
much cheaper here than in less productive lands in other States. 

MORGAN COUNTY 

Is rich in all the resources of material prosperity. All the grains, fruits 
and vegetables are abundantly produced. Pasture lands are luxuriant 
beyond description. This industry is assisted by the numerous springs, 
streams and rivers of pure water which flow through the county. The 
county contains about 14,000 population, from all the Eastern and North- 
ern States. They are hospitable, and give a stranger cordial welcome. 
Immense crops of apples, peaches, pears, cherries and grapes are annually 
produced. The winters are mild, and cattle are often able to live during 
the entire winter with little care and attention. The county is well 
supplied with railroads, public schools, churches, newspapers, etc. Land 
can be purchased at from $1.50 to |50 per acre. The lower priced land is 
only adapted to pasturage, but very fine farming lands are obtainable at 
prices that would astonish an Eastern land buyer. 

PETTIS COUNTY 

Is one of the central counties of the State, and Sedalia, the county seat, 
is the largest of the interior towns between St. Louis and Kansas City. 
There is but little vacant or unimproved land, but the average price of 
farming lands are lower than the older States, where no better prices for 
farm produce or shipping facilities prevail. $25 to $40 per acre will pur- 



MISSOURI. 81 

chase the best land in the world, which lies in this county. All kinds of 
grains, fruits, vegetables, grow in great abundance. Live stock of the 
finest breeds are reared, and the farms are models of comfort and pros- 
perity. Schools are good, church facilities abundant, taxes low. 

VERNON COUNTY 

Out of its 536,000 acres has not over 25,000 acres of land that cannot be 
brought under cultivation. The population at present is about 40,000, 
taxable wealth, $7,500,000. Taxes are low ; school districts number 129 
in the county outside of the village and city schools ; is amply provided 
with railways, and the best of the land in the county can be obtained 
from $17 to $40 per acre, as extreme prices. The average price is between 
$20 and $30 ; unimproved timber lands at $10 and $12 to $20 per acre. 
The mineral indications are excellent ; coal is found in great abundance, 
lead and zinc are found in numerous places, and are successfully mined. 
Iron ore, asphalt, aluminum, mineral paint and potters' clay are also 
found. The surface of the county is abundantly rolling, while offering 
excellent drainage. The soil is of a warm nature and of easy cultivation. 
Wheat and grain raising cannot be excelled ; oats, rye and millet also do 
well. Fruit reaches its greatest perfection, apples, pears, plums, cherries 
and apricots all being raised successfully, as well as the small fruits. 
Manufacturing establishments of all kinds are needed, and would be 
remunerative. 

ST. CLAIR COUNTY 

Is worthy of the attention of the farmer, capitalist and manufacturer. 
The surface is made up of fruitful vales and prairies, cut by numerous 
streams of pure water, and overhung by clear, beautiful skies The county 
is well settled, principally by a class of intelligent farmers who till the 
rich lands with the greatest success, yet good patches of unimproved prairie 
can be found in various parts of the county that are open for purchase 
and settlement. There are wooded uplands containing fine timber, con- 
sisting of ash, oak, hickory, pecan, etc. Coal, iron, lead and zinc, build- 
ing stone, paint earths, and many other deposits have been discovered, and 
there is a chance here for the miner, manufacturer and capitalist, as well 
as the farmer. Improved farms can be purchased at reasonable figures. 
Stock raising is extensively engaged in, and the county is well adapted 
to this and dairying purposes. 



82 MISSOURI. 

SOUTHEAST MISSOURI. 

TOPOGRAPHY 

SOUTHEAST Missouri is about nine-tenths hills, mountains, and 
^^ rolling uplands, and one-tenth bottoms. The Ozark range of hills, 
sometimes called mountains, extend through the district, from 
West to East, decreasing in height as they near the INIississippi and 
spurs of this range and their foot-hills occupy most of the district. The 
highest peaks and ridges are, generally, covered with a coating of broken 
chert — a kind of flint, mixed with a red clay loam, of from one to four 
feet in depth. Amid the highest points are large areas or plateaus of 
gently rolling clay loam, available for farms and stock ranges. The 
lower hills are covered with red and yellow clay loam mixed wath 
varying proportions of sand, all extending a depth of four to thirty feet, 
a strong, fertile soil, easy of cultivation, and very productive. Some of 
these hill lands contain so large a proportion of sand that they are liable 
to wash into gullies, when neglected. Underlying a large part of these 
hills are stratified rocks, principally magnesian limestones, but carbon- 
iferous limestone is found in many localities along and near the Missis- 
sippi. The whole district gives evidence of volcanic upheaval and at 
many points granite and porphyry ape found in immense masses. The 
streams run from the Ozarks, to the North, East and South, those run- 
ning East being mostly small. Piney Fork, of the Gasconade, and the 
Meramec are lumbering streams, running to the northeast, the last 
emptying into the Mississippi. Big river, a stream too small for lumber- 
ing, is the largest flowing to the East, while to the South run the White- 
water, or Little river, Castor, St. Francois, Black, Little Black, Current, 
Eleven Point, and the forks of White river. Little river, St. Francois, 
Black and Current are navigable for steamers from 50 to 150 miles in this 
State and all the last named streams are largely used for lumbering, as 
also their tributaries. The entire district is well watered. Springs of 
limpid water abound in all counties except those of the Mississippi bot- 
tom and in those good water is easily obtained by the use of the tube or 
drive wells. 



MISSOURf. 83 



BOTTOMS. 



Each of the rivers mentioned has ii bottom of a breadth of from a few 
hundred feet to miles and from Commerce, southward to the Arkansas 
line, extends a bottom, increasing in width, in nearly a triangular outline 
to about seventy miles wide at the South side, the State line, from East 
to West. Within this Territory, however, is one range of hills, several miles 
in width, extending in a soutliwestern direction, which disappears at the 
St. Francois river, and reappears in Crawley's ridge, in Arkansas, ending 
at Helena. The smaller bottoms are generally composed of a clay loam 
with varying proportions of sand and some streaks of white clay. The 
broad Mississippi bottom is composed of alternations of low " ridges,'' 
usually from two to four feet high and depressions or slashes, a foot or 
more in depth, the ridges extending in a southerly direction, parallel 
with the main course of the streams. The ridges are usually from a quar- 
ter to half a mile apart. In other words, the surface of the bottom is 
like a succession of long waves. AVhile the timber remains, the fallen 
trees dam the flow of the water, causing it to slowly make its way out or 
to disappear by evaporation. The immense mass of leaves falling from 
the forest adds to the effect of the tree trunks, in retarding drainage. 
The average slope or fall of this bottom, to the South, is one to three feet 
to the mile, so that when the obstructions are removed, the land is at 
once available for cultivation. Tlie Little, Castor, St. Francois, Black and 
Little Black rivers cross this bottom, and as their flow is sluggish through 
the low lands, rubbish accumulates, and during the largest freshets the 
rivers overflow their banks, generally for a few hours, but the river banks 
are higher than the lands a mile further backand the spreading waters of 
the floods find their way back to the rivers miles below the points of escape, 
and, if retarded by fallen timber the process is slow. These facts caused 
the name of " swamp lands " to be given to large areas of the finest land 
in the State which are easily made safe from flood injuries and on which 
hundreds of excellent farms are now opened. Of actual swamps, but 
a few thousand acres can be found in Southeast Missouri. The area sub- 
ject to occasional overflow has been reduced half within a few years, by 
mill men clearing the rivers of*' rafts" and when an inexpensive system 
of ditching is introduced it will all be tillable. It is as easily drained 
as were the prairies of Illinois. In every instance, where the clearings 



84 MISSOURI. 

have been extended across the slashes, the water has disappeared and the 
land has ]:)ecome safely tillable. The bottom lands are loose and easy of 
cultivation and can often be plowed every month in the year. 

It should be noted here, that of the lakes marked on the maps, a 
majority never had an existence and hundreds of thousands of acres so 
marked were not only never overflowed, but were in fact beautiful 
prairies, wholly above the highest floods. The name "swamps" 
attached to these lands by reason of an act of Congress, passed Septem- 
ber 28, 1850, donating to the several States all swamp and overflowed 
lands lying within their boundaries, in trust that the States would 
severally drain and reclaim them and after paying the expense of 
reclamation, convert the remaining proceeds of the sales into the school 
funds. The cupidity of the States resulted in hundreds of thousands of 
acres of the best bottom lands and in fact of thousands of acres of hill 
lands being certified and transferred to the State of Missouri, as swamp 
and overflowed, which were always safe from overflow. The beautiful 
prairies of Dunklin county, which are now a succession of the handsomest 
farms in Missouri, were classed as swamp and overflowed. When the 
timber is removed, it will be found that there are not 40,000 acres of 
actual swamp in Southeast Missouri and that all of this can be drained at 
small expense. It need not be stated that the name " swamp land," has 
operated greatly to the injury of the district, causing many to avoid it 
who would have become citizens, had they known the facts. A per- 
sonal examination will soon satisfy the most skeptical. 

SOILS. 

There are three kinds of soils to be found in the district, each varying in 
different localities, but possessing the same general characteristics : the 
red and yellow clay loam, the white or grey clay, and the brown and 
dark sandy loam. The first is found, throughout the entire hill region, 
or nine-tenths of the district and also in many of the smaller valleys and 
that part of the great bottom near the hills. The color is due to varying 
proportions of iron oxide or rust. In many places the color is a deep or 
brick red, while in others it is a light brown, but the fertility is about 
the same. In most places in the river counties, it contains a good pro- 
portion of lime, from the disintegration of the magnesian or other lime- 
stone. It is easy to plow, but cannot be safely worked for a day or more 
after a rain, without risk of forming hard clods. Its fertility, although 



MISSOURI. 85 

apparently not as great as that of the sandy bottoms, is practically inex- 
haustible. Its subsoil is a dense clay and chert or gravel, often almost 
impervious to moisture, but which contains the elements of fertility. 
This soil is good for the production of all grains, grasses and vegetables. 
The winter wheat raised on it is of superior quality and under good culti- 
vation the yield is from 20 to 40 bushels per acre. This vsoil is also 
adapted to fruits of all kinds. 

The white or grey clay is found in streaks of a hundred or more feet in 
width and in some localities extends over many acres. It is in no respect 
equal to the yellow or red clay loam in fertility, is heavy and tends to 
run together after continued rains. It is not well adapted to vegetables 
or cotton, but yields fair crops of grass. There is comparatively little of 
this soil in the district. 

The sandy soils are loose, friable and usually have a light and sandy 
subsoil. They are very fertile, but on the prairies, sometimes become 
exhausted. In the bottoms, the soil contains more clay and is almost 
inexhaustible. Many fields that have been cultivated for a quarter of a 
century show no falling off in crop yields. This land is found throughout 
the Mississippi bottom. The whole region will, within a few years, 
become the garden spot of the Mississippi valley. Vegetables of all 
kinds grow to large size and of excellent quality. For melons, squashes, 
cotton, corn, it is unexcelled. Corn yields 50 to 100 bushels per acre, 
cotton half to a bale per acre, potatoes 150 bushels, sweet potatoes 200 
bushels, onions, 200 to 300 bushels, and other crops in proportion. 
Grapes do not yield as well as in the hills, being subject to rot, but 
cherries, apples, plums and peaches bear good crops. Pears will probably 
yield as well or better in the hills. This soil becomes warm a week or 
more before the hill land is fit for planting and produces potatoes, 
radishes, lettuce and other early vegetables from ten to fifteen or twenty 
days in advance of localities in the same latitude. 

MINERALS. 

The mineral products of Southeast Missouri are of great variety and 
immense in quantity. The leading mineral in quantity, as well as in the 
profit of its mining, is lead. The lead region includes all of Washington, 
Jefferson, St. Francois and Madison counties and parts of Ste. Genevieve. 
Perry, Cape Girardeau, Bollinger, Wayne, Iron, Carter, Ripley, Reynolds, 
Shannon, and probably Stoddard and Butler. The lead formations are 



86 MISSOURI. 

of two classes, Galena, which is A)un(l in masses of great purity, in holes, 
called " pockets," or " chimneys," and " disseminated" ore, which, as its 
name indicates, is scattered in varying degrees of richness through the 
veins of rock in which it occurs. The veins of this ore are horizontal, or 
nearly so, like the "blanket" veins of the Leadville district. This ore, 
before it is smelted, is crushed and "jigged," or Avashed, by which 
the lead crystals are separated from the magnesian limestone in which it 
occurs. In some places, as in the Doe Run mines of St. Francois county, 
such veins have been found 18 feet thick and in parts of the St. Joe 
mines, the aggregate thickness of the veins, in a depth of 300 feet, is over 
50 feet. The output of the two mines is about one-half of the lead pro- 
duction of the United States, the St. Joe being the largest in the country. 
Good smelters are well distributed through the district and the daily pro- 
duct is about 4,000 pigs, or nearly 96,000,000 pounds a year. Th-e dissemi- 
nated lead mines are the best for the laboring men, because the mining, 
instead of being carried on by men working separately under royalty con- 
tracts, is like coal mining, the men being paid regular wages according to 
the work done. Thriving towns have grown up around each of the larger 
mines. Next in production, of the mines is iron. This is found in every 
hill county of the district, but the best nunes as yet worked, are in St. 
Francois, Iron and Crawford counties. The Iron INIountain has yielded 
millions to its owners and is still as productive as ever, but owing to the 
present low price of ores, is not worked as vigorously as in the past. 

Zinc, in the forms of silicate, dry bone, carbonate and " Black Jack," 
is found in large deposits, in Jefferson, AVashington, St. Francois, Ste. 
Genevieve and Madison. The zinc mines employ several hundred men 
and are, as yet, only partially developed. 

Manganese is to be found in nearly every hill county of the district, 
but only a few valuable veins have been opened in AVashington, Madison 
and Iron counties. 

Fire clay of quality equal to the famous clays of St. Louis, is in large 
banks in Ste. Genevieve and Cape Girardeau counties and has been made 
into bricks. The brick clay of the river counties is also suitable for the 
best pressed brick and will doubtless be an article of commerce in the 
near future, as pressed brick is steadily gaining in use in the cities. 

Kaolin and China clays are in banks many feet in depth in Jefferson, 
Ste. 'Genevieve, Cape Girardeau, Bollinger, Iron and Washington and 
are believed to underlie a large imrt of the district. 



MISSOURI. 



BUILDING STONES AND MARBLES. 

Probably no region of equal area in the United States can show worka- 
ble quarries of as many useful varieties of building and ornamental stone, 
as Southeast Missouri. Granite is found in more than a bundred 
localities and nearly as many shades and colors, from a bright red to a 
pink, brown, grey, black, green olive, etc. The granites of this district 
contain little or no mica, will stand an enormous crushing weight, are 
very hard and withstand atmospheric influences as well as, if not better 
than, any other American granites. This stone is found in the finest 
buildings of St. Louis and is steadily gaining in popularity throughout 
the country. Good building limestone is in half of the counties, the best 
being in Jefferson, Ste. Genevieve, Cape Girardeau and St. Francois. 
Marble occurs in at least thirty distinct beds in M adison county, all the 
strata being variegated and exceedingly beautiful admitting a high polish. 
The principal colors and shades are pink, mottled, clouded and dotted 
with white, grey, brown, green, dark red, blue and yellow. The marbles 
of Ste. Genevieve county are also numerous, found in immense masses 
and marked in great variet3^ They are also susceptible of a high polish 
and are peculiarly adapted for mantels and interior house finish. 

Building sandstone of good quality is quarried and in general use in 
St. Francois, -Cape Girardeau, Ste. Genevieve, Perry, Bollinger, Butler, 
Pipley and Jefferson counties. The best quality is found in inexhausti- 
ble strata in Ste. Genevieve, and superior grindstones are furnished by 
tlie same quarry. 

Porphyry of a quality useful for building purposes, exists in large 
masses in Iron, Madison, St, Francois and Wayne counties. 

CLIMATE. 

That the spring comes earlier and the fall ends later, in Southeast 
Missouri than in States further North, goes without saying ; but the differ- 
ences do not end there. The winters are always mild, the extreme cold 
being generally about zero (Fahrenheit) and the cold weather with snow 
and ice lasting less than two months. In occasional winters the tempera- 
ture has fallen below this, but these are rare. Winter usually begins 
about the 15th of December, with more rain than snow throughout 
the season. The coldest weather is generally in January. In Feb- 



88 



MISSOURI. 



ruary, until the 15th, there are cold days. In the latter part of 
February ther& are more wann, spring days than wintry weather. 
In March, early potatoes are often planted by the 10th and most of the 
month is available to the farmers to get the ground ready for planting. 




MISSOURI PACIFIC RAILWAY. 



MISSOURI RIVER, AT BOONVILLB. 

The best farmers plant corn in April and May. Early planting almost 
invariably pays the best. Cotton is planted in May and June. During 
the spring months, the weather is generally warm and pleasant. Winter 



MISSOURI. 89 

wheat is ready for harvesting from the 20th of June to the 10th of July, the 
usual time being the 1st of the latter month. Strawberries are in market 
in April, cherries early in May, peaches from June to November. Con- 
cord grapes begin to come into market about the first of August, During 
the latter part of June, all of July and August, there are many warm 
days, the thermometer often indicating in the nineties every day for a 
week or two, but rarely reaching 100 degrees in the shade in any part 
of the district and then only for a few hours. In the highest hills 
these extremes of heat are rarely reached. Throughout the district 
the summer nights are cool and agreeable, ensuring comfortable 
sleep. The first killing frost rarely occurs before October and heavy 
frosts but a few days before November. The fall seasons are always 
delightful, not too warm nor yet too cold for comfort. For consumptives 
or invalids the climate of Southeast Missouri is very favorable, especially 
during the fall. In the higher hills the summers, too, are delightful ; 
especially in Iron, Washington and St. Francois counties and parts of 
Madison, Reynolds, Crawford and Dent. Many visitors spend their 
summers in these counties and the number increases every year. Were 
an effort made for such patronage, the mountain portions would be 
thronged with visitors from the South every summer, on account of the 
charming scenery and delightful climate. 

The vegetable growth of the entire district is rai^id and especially in 
the bottom lands. Pine trees attain a diameter of ten inches in twenty 
years. Corn often grows 18 feet high. The warm climate, regular rains 
and fertile soil produce a large return for honest farm labor. 

The greatest objection raised to Southeast Missouri has been on the 
score of health. This has mainly arisen from a misunderstanding of the 
character of the region. In the first place, nine-tenths of Southeast Mis- 
souri is as high above the ocean as Iowa and higher than the average of 
Illinois or Indiana. The other tenth is bottom land, with far less of' 
actual swamps than were found in Indiana in its settlement. Malarial 
diseases are not as prevalent in the hill regions of the district as in those 
of Southern Illinois, or Indiana, in fact no healthier country, on an 
average, can be found in the United States, East of the Sierras. Consump- 
tion, the dreaded spectre of the North and Northeast, very rarely 
develops in Southeast Missouri, never in bottom regions. Most immi- 
grants, from whatever district they may come, usually find their health 
improved by residence in the hills of Southeast Missouri. The bottoms 



90 MISSOURI. 

are all to the south and southeast, while the summer and fall winds are 
almost constantly jfrom the West and Southwest. The time will come 
when the mistaken notion of years will bo abandoned and the hill 
regions of this district will be a favorite resort for people of delicate 
health. 

AGRICULTURE. 

Although the mineral wealth of the district is great, farming, stock- 
raising, gardening and fruit culture must, for all time, be the leading 
industries, employing the largest share of the population. Fortunately 
the soils are good, the climate favorable, markets are accessible and trans- 
portation is cheap. The reorganization of routes of commerce, by rail- 
roads has given advantages that comparatively few of the older settlers 
seem to realize, at least thousands have failed to avail themselves of 
them. Time and the success of those who have been and are up with 
the times, will even up the condition of farmers and prosperity will be 
more general. 

Grains and grasses thrive well in all parts of the district. The rockiest 
flint and chert covered hills bear a large annual crop of fine grass, on 
which thousantls of sheep and cattle are fed for months every year and 
ten times as many could be well fed. The hill regions, generally, cannot 
be excelled for clover. The best clover seed in the great markets now 
comes from the river counties of Southeast Missouri, Cape Girardeau, 
Scott, Perry, Ste. Genevieve and the raising of this seed has become a 
prosperous industry. As stated in the chapters on soils, wheat is the 
leading crop in all the hill counties bordering on the Mississippi and it 
also leads in the bottoms of Scott, Mississippi and New Madrid. Under 
judicious management with this crop the soil improves and the yield 
also. When one can average twenty bushels per acre, at 70 cents a 
bushel, on land valued at less than thirty dollars, it is easily seen how 
much more profitable farming is, than where the same yield of wheat is 
secured, worth 80 cents a bushel on land valued at $100 an acre. As is 
well known, with the present mechanical appliances, the cost of culti- 
vating the ground, seeding and harvesting, are about the same in all 
parts of the country. The yield of oats, barley and rye, are about pro- 
portionate to that of wheat throughout the district. Large quantities of 
oats are raised, but rye and barley are cultivated principally in the 
Northern counties of the district. The Kentucky blue grass thrives as 



MTSSOUm. 91 

well on the hills of the district as in its native State and is found in all 
the upland counties. Of the grasses for hay, propably red top does the 
best and timothy next. In the bottom lands and especially on the 
prairies, timothy is liable to " burn out " in the warm weather following 
haying season and it is sometimes injured in the same way on southern 
slopes of hills. The average crops of these grasses are not quite as large 
as in some of the Northern States, but always large enough for a fair 
profit. Sometimes timothy yields over three tons per acre. 

STOCK RAISING 

Was, for many years, the main dependence of farmers, as only stock 
could be driven and transported to market by wagon road and river. In 
the earlier times also, there was more dependence placed on the range 
tlian now. In those days hogs needed little, if any feeding, more than 
was necessary to keep them gentle. Now those farmers who keep close 
watch on their stock and feed often in winter are most successful. 
There is yet plent}^ of summer and fall range for cattle, in the hills and 
the spring range is earlier than in Texas and of excellent quality. Beef 
cattle can be marketed from the spring range about a month before the 
Texas beeves come into market, a very desirable feature of the business. 
In the bottoms, the range for hogs and cattle is good the year round. 
Sheep and wool have never received the attention deserved. Large 
ranges well adapted for sheep can be found among the highest hills. 
Many farmers have found the raising of mules and good horses very 
profitable and the business may be largely extended without overstock- 
ing the market. Poultry raising has become one of the profitable indus- 
tries in all the counties and with recently improved railroad facilities 
gains rapidly in volume and steadily in profit. Every hiir county con- 
tains plenty of tobacco land of the best quality. Tobacco raising was, 
for years, one of the most profitable industries of the district, but the 
restrictions of the revenue laws just after the war worked disastrously to 
thinly settled districts and it was generally abandoned. Doubtless, 
tobacco will again be a popular crop in the future, as the restrictions are 
no longer so burdensome and may soon be wholly removed. Dairying has 
been gaining steadily, in numbers interested, for twenty years in nearly 
every county, particularly the northern ones. The shipments of milk 
and cream to St. Louis and Memphis over the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & 



92 MISSOURI. 

Southern railroad have doubled at least twice within the past ten years 
and are now so large tliat special milk trains to St. Louis will soon 
become a necessity. This increase will undoubtedly continue, as hun- 
dreds of thousands of acres available for dairy farming and accessible to 
that road are yet covered with forest. Probably, before many years, 
there will be found an excellent market for the dairy products of this dis- 
trict in Memphis. 

The annual yield of cotton in tlie district is between 20,000 and 30,000 
bales. 

Corn is, of course, a staple product everywhere, and it is largely shipped 
from Scott, Mississippi and Stoddard counties. The bottom land is, gen- 
erally speaking, the best for corn, although 75 bushels an acre are some- 
times raised in the hills. Prices range from 28 to 40 cents. 



FRUITS. 

No industry is more certain of rapid development and good profits in 
the district than the raising of fruit. Farmers have known for years that 
the fruit of Southeast Missouri was at least equal to any raised in neigh- 
boring States, but as they found little encouragement from local trades- 
men, and local demand was not generally sufficient to warrant going into 
fruit growing on a large scale, only a few ventured to ship to the markets 
on commission and those met with small encouragement. Fruit buyers 
were of the impression that nothing could be done here and did not 
visit the district. Last fall there was a strong demand for good apples 
and buyers were on the alert to find new fields. Tlie exhibit of South- 
east Missouri at the St. Louis Exposition included a few samples, from 
three or four counties, of their fruit products. The buyers were surprised 
and on learning that plenty of such fruit could be bought in these coun- 
ties the dealers sent agents out and within two months had bought more 
apples from the district than in many years before, and at prices as sat- 
isfactory to growers as buyers. This was the beginning of a new era in 
fruit growing and every year will show a rapid increase in the produc- 
tions and profits. The dealers last year frankly admitted that in all the 
Territories they visited, within a radius of about 200 miles around St. 
Louis, they found no fruit surpassing that of this district, either in size, 
quality or attractiveness of color. They will never overlook the district 
again. The poorest rocky hills of Southeast Missouri, under reasonable 



MISSOURI. 93 

care, will yield large crops of apples, pears, plums, cherries, grapes or 
other small fruits and enough peaches can be grown in the district to 
supply several cities The profits realized from the only systematically 
managed orchard in the district, which is also the largest in the State, 
proved clearly that acre for acre, fruit growing pays better than any 
other farm effort and is about equal in profits to most gardens. The fruits 
that yield the largest profits and lead in quality are, of apples, Ben 
Davis, Grimes' Golden, Willow-twig, Winesap, and Jonathan ; of pears, 
Bartlet, Seckel and Duchesse D'Angouleme ; of plums, any of the best 
known varieties and peaches, the same. Only the sour or Morello 
cherries succeed here. The heart cherries do not pay. Of the small 
fruits, grapes thrive and produce delicious fruit in all the hill regions, 
also gooseberries, raspberries and blackberries. Currants sometimes 
pay, but not always. In the average of years, probably apples, pears, 
grapes and strawberries will be the most profitable of the fruits. Straw- 
berries now yield good returns in Bollinger, Cape Girardeau, Stoddard, 
Madison, Iron, St. Francois and Butler counties. Direct railway lines to 
St. Louis, Chicago and Northern cities ensure a constant and increasing 
market for all small fruits. The western counties of the district have an 
almost unlimited market for all their fruits in Kansas City, St. Joseph 
and Northwestern cities and regions. The demand has been so great and 
and the prices so favorable, that no fruit from those counties need be 
shipped to St. Louis or is likely to be for many years to come. 

TIMBER AND TIMBER PRODUCTS. 

Nearly the entire district was covered with forests of pine in the 
higher hills, and a large variety of timber in the lower hills, valleys and 
bottoms. The pine is all of the yellow variety, soft and hard, the latter 
predominating. These pineries yet cover about half a million acres, but 
are mostly under contfol of sawmill owners. They daily turn out many 
hundreds of thousands of feet of superior lumber, most of which is 
shipped to Northern markets. Oak is in about twenty known varieties, 
nearly all of great value, and all at least useful. Ash, poplar, gum, elm, 
walnut, cypress, hickory, tupelo, maple, basswood, catalpa, Cottonwood, 
backberry, pecan, cherry, beech, box elder, sycamore, ironwood, dog- 
wood, and many other valuable woods grow in great luxuriance. The 
lumbering interests include investments of millions of dollars in 



94 MISSOURI. 

machinery, logs and lands, and will be profitable for many years, as not 
half of the timber is exhausted.- Good oak, gum and hickory lands can 
be bought at reasonable or even low prices, but they are being rapidly 
bought by lumbermen and speculators. The best timbered lands now 
open to purchase are in the bottom counties. 



00MB AND SEE!'! 

Words cannot fully describe any country. He who wants a home 
should not only compare the inducements offered, before making up his 
mind, but he should finally determine his choice by personal inspection, 
before a dollar is paid. He should know that the title is good. Some 
one has the title to each tract and in most cases it can easily be learned 
by investigation. Speculators can afford to buy doubtful titles, some- 
times, but that is not the true policy for farmers. There is plenty of land 
to be had in every county, at low prices with unquestionable title. The 
man who will not produce a clear abstract is generally unsafe to deal 
with. To every one who has read these hints on Southeast Missouri, we 
give the same advice : Come and See ' ' Reading is sometimes believing, 
but seeing is know^ing. The visitor will find that the statements above 
are not overdrawn or misleading. There is no need for misleading any 
one. This pamphlet is published, not to sell lands, but to induce good 
people to cast their lot in Missouri. In the course of events this district 
will be settled, rich and prosperous. We simply wish to hasten the pro- 
cess and realize the advantages of a developed country. It is not mere 
numbers that are desired, but good neighbors, industrious men. There 
are many holders of large tracts of land who will sell at reasonable prices 
and on fair terms. It is cheaper and infinitely better for an industrious 
man with a few hundred dollars to buy than to rent. A common mis- 
take, however, is buying too much. 160 acres is as much as any farmer 
with only his fiimily t(^ help and care for, ought to buy, unless he has 
money to spare to speculate on. A small farm of 80 acres well tilled, will 
pay better than 160 acres, skinned over. 



IHON JIooiJTfliH Route. 

4_____ eMm M 
DAILY TRAINS /I 
IP ^" 



SOUTHWEST 



-EQUIPPED WITH— 



Pullman Buffet Sleeping Cars, 
Free Reclining Chair Cars, 
p.t^ Elegant Day Coaches. 



-ALL POINTS IN- 



^ouTHEHST Missouri. 



-AND TO- 



MEMPHIS, LITTLE ROCK, HOUSTON, 

GALVESTON, AUSTIN, SAN ANTONIO, 

LAREDO (wliere Direct Connection is made lor tlie CITY OF MEXICO), 

DALLAS, FORT WORTH, and EL PASO, 
where Direct Connection is made for LOS 
ANGELES and SAN FRANCISCO. 



F 466 
.n67 
Copy 1 



EGOItORADO SHORT IilNE 



JVQSSOURI PACIFIC ^Y 



EQUIP* F>ED 



SOLID TRAINS, 
FREE RECLINING CHAIR CARS 

AND 

PULLMAN BUFFET SLEEPINa CARS, 

-AND RUN 

THROUGH VIA KANSAS CITY, 



PUBBL.O #^ DBNVBR 

WITHOUT CHANGE, 

WHERE CONNECTIONS ARE MADE FOR 

ALL ROCKY MOUNTAIN POINTS 



